OUR SHARE OF MORNING

Two sisters growing up in Depression-era New England confront poverty, illness, and family secrets in Bonazzoli’s historical novel.

After growing up in a Boston-area triple decker, Violet and Gloria (“Glory”) Campo have their lives upended when their mother is sent away to a tuberculosis sanatorium. In the absence of maternal care, 10-year-old Violet assumes responsibility, promising to “be extra good while Mama was gone” and teaching herself to cook, clean, and protect her younger sister. Glory, more fragile and imaginative, experiences the world with heightened sensitivity—“the scared feeling like broken glass pricking my insides”—and turns increasingly toward poetry as a refuge. As the narrative progresses through the 1930s and 1940s, the girls’ voices alternate, shifting from the immediacy of childhood confusion to the more layered reflections of adolescence. Violet finds her calling in photography, capturing portraits of war veterans, while Glory aspires to be a poet, memorizing and composing verses to preserve a sense of beauty against loss. Their father, who is volatile yet capable of tenderness (kissing Glory’s hand and calling her “bambolina” in one moment, then lashing out in anger the next), embodies the instability of their home life. Neighbors, such as the widowed Mrs. Rasmussen and her cat, Sir Lancelot, provide moments of stability and compassion. The prose captures both the innocence of childhood perception and the weight of adult grief, often through striking imagery; Glory recalls her mother’s departure in almost apocalyptic terms: “the red door and the wall and the steps…like it was all glass and the glass just broke.” Such moments ground the novel’s central theme: art and memory can even transform devastation into meaning. The sisters’ voices intertwine to form a vivid portrait of resilience and love in the face of silence, absence, and loss.

A lyrical, slow-burning family saga that finds poetry in hardship and tenderness in survival.