"There is only one pleasure, that of being alive. All the rest is misery," wrote Cesare Pavese, whose short, intense life spanned the ordeals of fascism and World War II to witness the beginnings of Italy's postwar prosperity. Searchingly alert to nuances of speech, feeling, and atmosphere, and remarkably varied, his novels offer a panoramic vision, at once sensual and finely considered, of a time of tumultuous change. This volume presents readers with Pavese's major works.
The Beach
is a wry summertime comedy of sexual and romantic misunderstandings, while
The House on the Hill
is an extraordinary novel of war in which a teacher flees through a countryside that is both beautiful and convulsed with terror.
Among Women Only
tells of a fashion designer who enters the affluent world she has always dreamed of, only to find herself caught up in an eerie dance of destruction, and
The Devil in the Hills
is an engaging road novel about three young men roaming the hills in high summer who stumble on mysteries of love and death.