Ferocity

Winner of the 2015 Strega Prize, Italy`s preeminent prize for fiction Ferocity is at once an intimate family saga and a cinematic portrait of the moral and political corruption of an entire society. It is an ambitious, stylish work by one of Italy`s foremost novelists. Bari, southern Italy. On a stifling summer`s night, on the outskirts of town, a young woman named Clara, the daughter of the region`s most prominent family of real estate developers, stumbles naked, dazed, and bloodied down a major highway. Her death will be deemed a suicide. Her estranged half-brother, however, cannot free himself from her memory or the questions surrounding her death, and the more he learns about Clara`s life, the more he reveals the moral decay at the core of his family`s ascent to scoial prominence. Ferocity combines suspense, psychological acutiy, and contemporary realism in a feat of storytelling. It is fierce and relentless in pursuit of its characters` psychological truths, yet lyrical and moving as it describes the natural splendor of Italy ravaged by greed and regulatory negligence.