Green Water, Green Sky by Mavis Gallant

Set against the glamorous backdrop of Venice, Cannes and Paris, Gallant's debut novel weaves a tale of family and identity as a divorcée's daughter attempts to break free of her mother's itinerant lifestyle.

With a foreword by Brandon Taylor.

An elegant, melancholic novella about memory, family and the meaning of home.

This is the tale of the fractured family life of Bonnie McCarthy, an American divorcée, and her daughter, Flor. Uprooted and unmoored, mother and daughter lead an itinerant existence – Venice, Canne and Paris as a backdrop – glamorous and dependent. When Flor attempts to flee this untidy life and the oppressive rule of her eccentric mother, she instead succumbs to a gradual decline into insanity.

Green Water, Green Sky was Mavis Gallant’s debut novel and is a quietly dazzling example of hermasterful shifts in narrative perspective and her visceral exploration of displacement and exile.