The Chapel at the Edge of the World - Softcover

McKenzie, Kirsten

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848541503 ISBN 13: 9781848541504

Publisher: John Murray, 2010

Synopsis

A richly told wartime love story, inspired by a true World War II act of optimism Emilio and Rosa are childhood sweethearts, engaged to be married. But it is 1942 and the war has taken Emilio far from Italy, to a northern Scottish island where he is a POW. Rosa must wait for him to return and help her mother run the family hotel on the shores of Lake Como, in Italy. Feeling increasingly frustrated with his situation, Emilio is inspired by the idea of building a chapel on the barren island. The prisoners band together to create an extraordinary building out of little more than salvaged odds and ends and homemade paints. While Emilio’s chapel will remain long after the POW camp has been left to the sheep, will his love for Rosa survive the hardships of war and separation?  Rosa is no longer the girl that he left behind. She is being drawn further into the Italian resistance movement and closer to danger, as friendships and allegiances are ever complicated by the war. Human perseverance and resilience are at the heart of this strong debut and the small Italian chapel remains, as it does in reality on the island of Lamb’s Holm, as a symbol of these qualities.

About this title

About the Author:

This is Kirsten McKenzie's debut novel. 

From Publishers Weekly:

An impressive debut novel follows, in gently paced flashbacks, a young Italian couple's experience of WWII. An accomplished artist and painter of church statues and frescos, Emilio suffers as a soldier and a prisoner of war in North Africa until he is shipped to a labor camp in the isolated Orkney Islands in Scotland. There he finds a rough camaraderie with fellow soldiers as they rebel against the strict discipline and eventually draw together to build a Catholic chapel out of scraps of construction material. Left behind, the teenaged Rosa finds purpose working for partisans in the city and in sheltering refugees at her mother's country hotel. Emilio's acceptance of his lot in wartime contrasts with Rosa's desire to grow and explore and the bitter helplessness she feels in the face of German ruthlessness. Though slow going at first, with the framing chapters unfortunately removing any suspense about the couple's fate (the story opens with Emilio and Rosa as long marrieds), the development of Emilio's and Rosa's separate paths is engaging, and the fictionalized true story of the Italian Chapel in the Orkneys genuinely captivating. (Jan.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: John Murray
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1848541503
• ISBN 13: 9781848541504
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 392