Voices from a Time Book

From the dawn of the twentieth century until World War II, members of a Jewish family in Trieste experienced great historical and cultural events – the birth of Freudian psychoanalysis, World War I, the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that turned Trieste into an Italian city, Fascism. In Voices from a Time, the main characters take turns describing the family's life in the first person.
Central to the story is Gemma, a frivolous but fascinating woman, an adulteress wife and irresponsible mother who behaves like an eternal child. The other family members try to keep up with Gemma and her eccentricities, often paying a high price to do so. The backdrop for this fascinating and beautifully told story contains the radiant and mundane world of fin de si?cle society, the atmosphere of Jewish Trieste, the irredentist movement, an encounter with Freud in Vienna, economic and financial downfall, and the cultural squalor of Italian Fascism.