Piranesi, an introduction

Never again will a single story be told as though it were the only one.— John Berger

Piranesi is the first of a novella trilogy, “a family saga in nine acts,” as recorded in the journals of its protagonists. Luca, his cousin Giulia, and Giulia’s daughter Natalia live in Piranesi, the Italian port town from which the family took its name. As they ponder their everyday, the rise of fascism begins to cast a shadow. Yet their lives go on, very much their own behind a carefully constructed scrim of orthodoxy.