Lippi won the Pen/Hemingway Award for this collection of linked stories, an honor well bestowed on this beautifully written work of fiction. The stories are set in the village of Rosenau, high in the Bregenz Forest of Vorarlberg. Spanning eighty years of village life, the narrative reveals first one woman’s secrets and then another, the incidents of one era bringing repercussions in another. Lippi chooses just the right details of life in the mountains to portray a community always tested by its place in time. Yet the conflicts of these unknown women will be recognized by every reader as universal and true as life itself. The author has provided clan charts, a pronunciation guide and a glossary at the back of the book, and the reader is advised to consult these helpful tools for a fuller comprehension of the complex dialect and family relationships portrayed.