Featured in

  • Published 20180501
  • ISBN: 9781925603323
  • Extent: 264pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

DECEMBER NIGHTS IN the mountains of the Abruzzo are long. People get cabin-fever in these snow-bound high villages on the Adriatic coast of central Italy. By the winter solstice, it is not unusual for the locals to devise escapades on the slightest of whims. Still, I was pissed off with my cousin Ennio, with my Abruzzese relatives and with Sean, my husband. They should never have let my father go with them that night, down the mountain into the valley, into the village of Rocca di Sangro.

Apparently Papa wanted to attend evening mass. Yeah, right. More like a smoke and drink half-a-dozen shots of the local spirit, centerba.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

Return of the rings

MemoirIN THE MID-2000s, my elderly parents died within eighteen months of each other. First Donato in his mid-eighties and then Lidia, who was younger...

More from this edition

Gold mountain woman

FictionOn the first Sunday of our summer-reading program, Griffith Review shines a spotlight on Mirandi Riwoe’s ‘Gold mountain woman’, published this year in Griffith...

Who do they think we are?

EssayEach Australian has both sexes, and if a child happens to be born with only one, they kill it as a monster… They average...

Debt in paradise

ReportageANNIE TRIED TO leave. She had no cash, just a car full of possessions. She’d worked full-time for four weeks with not a cent...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.