A Normal Life

Mia De Luca, a Italian-American girl from a middle-class suburban New Jersey background, spends a study abroad year in Rome, where she finds adventure, romance and a chance to reinvent herself. Instead, she finds herself caught between two cultures, two visions of adulthood, and a world slowly coming undone. Set during the years surrounding the 2008 financial crisis, A Normal Life follows Mia through love affairs, intellectual circles, family tensions, artistic ambitions, and growing political and economic uncertainty in both America and Italy. As the excitement of freedom gives way to deeper questions about identity, belonging, and emotional survival, Mia must confront the uncomfortable possibility that there may be no such thing as a "normal" life anymore. Atmospheric, psychologically rich, and deeply observant, this is a novel about modern relationships, cultural displacement, generational anxiety, and the search for meaning in an unstable age. Atmospheric, psychologically rich, and deeply observant, this is a novel about modern relationships, cultural displacement, generational anxiety, and the search for meaning in an unstable age.