Elsa Morante

"Follows the adolescent Arturo through his days on the isolated Neapolitan island of Procida, where -- his mother long deceased, his father often absent, and a dog as his sole companion -- he roams the countryside and the beaches or reads in his family's lonely, dilapidated mansion. This quiet, meandering existence is upended when his father brings home a beautiful sixteen-year-old bride, Nunziatella"--