Natalia Ginzburg, one of Italy's great writers, introduced A Family Lexicon, her
most celebrated work, with an unusual disclaimer: "The places, events and people
are all real. I have invented nothing. Every time that I have found myself
inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist, I have felt
impelled at once to destroy everything thus invented." A Family Lexicon
re-creates with extraordinary objectivity the small world of a family enduring
some of the most difficult years of the twentieth century, the period from the
rise of Mussolini through World War II (Ginzburg's first husband, who was a
member of the resistance, was