Overview

"Natalia Ginzburg begins A Family Lexicon with an unusual disclaimer: ""The places, events and people are all real. I have invented nothing. Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist, I have felt impelled at once to destroy everything thus invented."" In A Family Lexicon fiction is under the control of fact, and the result is a novel that recreates the small world of a family enduring some of the most difficult years of the twentieth century-spanning the period from the rise of Mussolini through World War II, in which Ginzburg's husband fought for the resistance and was killed by the Nazis-with passionate objectivity. Every family has its store of phrases and sayings by which it maintains its sense both of what it means to be a family and of what sets it apart as one particular family. This lexicon, these shared understandings, these stories, not by any means always to be relied on and sometimes not a little ridiculous, lie at the heart of a great novel about family and history."

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9781590178386

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Reviews

Ms. Ginzburg's limpid, idiosyncratic prose and her simplicity are an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned. -- The New York Times The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film. -- The Christian Science Monitor A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart. -- The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg's prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read. --Phillip Lopate The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer

Jenny McPhee's new translation... reads as more contemporary, immediate, and dynamic. Critically, McPhee's translation emphasizes how language operates within the closed system of a family... In Family Lexicon, familiar words and phrases are the fragments that conjure glimpses of a more complete world, summon what and who has been lost and allow them to continue, to coalesce, condense, collapse. To be carried away, yes, and to carry on. --Emily LaBarge, Bookforum The raw beauty of Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer There is no one quite like Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. --Phillip Lopate A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart. --Kate Simon, The New York Times Family Lexicon recalls the great modernists' reimaginings of childhood -- Joyce, Compton-Burnett, Katherine Mansfield, parts of Italo Svevo's Zeno's Conscience, and, farther back, Swann's Way... --Eric Gudas, Los Angeles Review of Books Ginzburg was a masterful writer, a witty, elegant prose stylist, and a fiercely intelligent thinker....This 1963 novel, newly translated by novelist McPhee, is a genre-defying work. It reads like a memoir, but it doesn't adhere to the conventions of either fiction or nonfiction.... The lore of her large, loving, and discordant family provides rich material for Ginzburg's engrossing autobiographical novel. --Publishers Weekly The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film. --The Christian Science Monitor Her simplicity is an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned. --William Weaver, The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg's prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read. --Phillip Lopate The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer -A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart.- --Kate Simon, The New York Times -The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film.- --The Christian Science Monitor -Her simplicity is an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned.- --William Weaver, The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg -There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg's prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read.- --Phillip Lopate -The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity.- --Hilma Wolitzer -The raw beauty of Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity.- --Hilma Wolitzer -There is no one quite like Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life.- --Phillip Lopate -A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart.- --Kate Simon, The New York Times-The lore of her large, loving, and discordant family provides rich material for Ginzburg's engrossing autobiographical novel.- --Publishers Weekly -The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film.- --The Christian Science Monitor -Her simplicity is an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned.- --William Weaver, The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg -There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg's prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read.- --Phillip Lopate -The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity.- --Hilma Wolitzer The raw beauty of Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer There is no one quite like Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. --Phillip Lopate A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart. --Kate Simon, The New York Times The lore of her large, loving, and discordant family provides rich material for Ginzburg's engrossing autobiographical novel. --Publishers Weekly The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film. --The Christian Science Monitor Her simplicity is an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned. --William Weaver, The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg's prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read. --Phillip Lopate The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart. --Kate Simon, The New York Times The lore of her large, loving, and discordant family provides rich material for Ginzburg's engrossing autobiographical novel. --Publishers Weekly The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film. --The Christian Science Monitor Her simplicity is an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned. --William Weaver, The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg's prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read. --Phillip Lopate The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer Ms. Ginzburg s limpid, idiosyncratic prose and her simplicity are an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned. The New York Times The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film. The Christian Science Monitor A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg s magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart. The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg s prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read. Phillip Lopate The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg s prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. Hilma Wolitzer Ms. Ginzburg's limpid, idiosyncratic prose and her simplicity are an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned. -- The New York Times The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film. -- The Christian Science Monitor A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart. -- The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg's prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read. --Phillip Lopate The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer

Jenny McPhee's new translation... reads as more contemporary, immediate, and dynamic. Critically, McPhee's translation emphasizes how language operates within the closed system of a family... In Family Lexicon, familiar words and phrases are the fragments that conjure glimpses of a more complete world, summon what and who has been lost and allow them to continue, to coalesce, condense, collapse. To be carried away, yes, and to carry on. --Emily LaBarge, Bookforum The raw beauty of Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer There is no one quite like Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. --Phillip Lopate A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart. --Kate Simon, The New York Times Family Lexicon recalls the great modernists' reimaginings of childhood -- Joyce, Compton-Burnett, Katherine Mansfield, parts of Italo Svevo's Zeno's Conscience, and, farther back, Swann's Way... --Eric Gudas, Los Angeles Review of Books Ginzburg was a masterful writer, a witty, elegant prose stylist, and a fiercely intelligent thinker....This 1963 novel, newly translated by novelist McPhee, is a genre-defying work. It reads like a memoir, but it doesn't adhere to the conventions of either fiction or nonfiction.... The lore of her large, loving, and discordant family provides rich material for Ginzburg's engrossing autobiographical novel. --Publishers Weekly The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film. --The Christian Science Monitor Her simplicity is an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned. --William Weaver, The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg's prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read. --Phillip Lopate The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer The raw beauty of Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer There is no one quite like Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. --Phillip Lopate A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart. --Kate Simon, The New York Times The lore of her large, loving, and discordant family provides rich material for Ginzburg's engrossing autobiographical novel. --Publishers Weekly The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film. --The Christian Science Monitor Her simplicity is an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned. --William Weaver, The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg's prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read. --Phillip Lopate The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart. --Kate Simon, The New York Times The lore of her large, loving, and discordant family provides rich material for Ginzburg's engrossing autobiographical novel. --Publishers Weekly The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film. --The Christian Science Monitor Her simplicity is an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned. --William Weaver, The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg's prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read. --Phillip Lopate The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer Ms. Ginzburg s limpid, idiosyncratic prose and her simplicity are an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned. The New York Times The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film. The Christian Science Monitor A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg s magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart. The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg s prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read. Phillip Lopate The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg s prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. Hilma Wolitzer Ms. Ginzburg's limpid, idiosyncratic prose and her simplicity are an achievement, hard-won and remarkable, and the more welcome in a literary world where the cloak of omniscience is all too readily donned. -- The New York Times The atmosphere of the book is so clear and immediate that reading it is like being there or seeing a film. -- The Christian Science Monitor A glowing light of modern Italian literature...Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase...As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart. -- The New York Times Praise for A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg's prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read. --Phillip Lopate The raw beauty of Natalia Ginzburg's prose compels our gaze. First we look inward, with the shock of recognition inspired by all great writing, and then, inevitably, out at the shared world she evokes with such uncompromising clarity. --Hilma Wolitzer

Author Information

Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991) was raised in a political and staunchly antifascist Jewish family that is the subject of her novel A Family Lexicon. During World War II, Ginzburg and her husband edited an antifascist newspaper and after the war she wrote several novels, short stories, essays, and two plays, many of which have been translated into English. Jenny McPhee is an author and translator. She lives in New York. Peg Boyers is a poet and executive editor of Salmagundi. She teaches poetry at Skidmore College.

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