The Lupo Stick - Softcover

Set on a small island off Sicily in the late 1950s and in contemporary Oxford, this Italian epic is a tale of identity, family secrets and mystery. Above all, it is a love story. When Graziella Lupo is orphaned at the age of thirteen, she is obliged to live with her tyrannical aunt and her husband, the corrupt mayor of the island. Treated as a skivvy by the family, she vows revenge, however long it takes. The novel is narrated by Graziella's daughter Rosa when Graziella has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's; and Rosa is anxious to write her mother's story before it is too late. ‘Valerie Blumenthal writes beautifully about the mother/daughter relationship, hidden secrets and Alzheimer’s in her latest novel set in Italy.’ - Tina Betts, literary agent

Valerie Blumenthal is the author of eleven critically acclaimed novels, several of which have been widely translated. Her novel, Saturday’s Child, sold in the region of a million copies worldwide. She has written features for the Times, Telegraph and Mail on Sunday, published several short stories, and for four years taught creative writing in a high security men’s prison. A third of the way through writing The Lupo Stick, Valerie was diagnosed with PCA (Posterior Cortical Atrophy), a rare form of Alzheimer’s, which strikes at a younger age. Writing The Lupo Stick has been a labour of love, but also one that has been fraught with frustration, as her condition altered over the six years it took to write.