Purgatoire
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Forest Avenue Press
Publishing:21st May '26
£12.99
This title is due to be published on 21st May, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
In 1910 Sabé Parella makes the journey from northern Italy to southern Colorado to join her husband who had gone ahead to work in the coal mines. But when Sabé arrives along the banks of the Purgatoire River, he is nowhere to be found.
Based on Prato’s ancestors, Purgatoire paints a gripping portrait of Italian immigrants in rural America, and how the shame and secrecy of one man’s abandonment haunts a family for generations. A single mother fights to reunite with her children, an immortal cat yearns for kin, a bootlegger’s recklessness devastates his family, queer folk escape to secret spaces, and stranded spirits narrate, converse, and sometimes violate the laws of their realm: they interfere with the fate of the living.
Melding familial research with richly imagined fiction, Prato weaves a mesmerizing story of the complex relationships between parents and children, the transcendent need for connection and redemption, and what we owe to our true desires.
"Purgatoire is a compulsively readable story of migration and loss, love and identity. This delightfully surreal novel follows the threads of history back and forth, resulting in a portrait of a family as American as only an immigration story can be."
—Elizabeth Gonzalez James, author of The Bullet Swallower
—Rene Denfeld, bestselling author of The Child Finder and The Enchanted
"This fascinating scrapbook of a novel deftly combines fiction, history, memoir, letters, and more to depict a family haunted by love and loss, hope and fear, the here-and-now, the living past, and the mysterious beyond. Liz Prato brings the reader into the hearts and minds of generations of characters, revealing their secrets, their wishes, their regrets, and their inheritances with masterly poise. A vivid and engaging saga."
—Shawn Levy, author of Clint: The Man and the Movies
Praise for Kids in America: A Gen X Reckoning
"A dazzling exploration into how cultures and identities criss-cross each other.”
—Lidia Yuknavitch, author of Thrust and The Chronology of Water
"In blending her cultural critique with personal stories, Prato calls to mind Joan Didion's later writing."
—Spectrum Culture
Praise for Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege
“ . . . a rebuke to cultural appropriation, combined with tribute to a place she loves too much to make her own.”
—The New York Times
“I was moved and astonished by this beautiful book.
—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things
"Liz Prato is beautifully smart about how disempowerment works, and how to combat it."
—Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron
Praise for Baby’s on Fire: Stories
“Liz Prato’s character’s blaze with humanity, sensuality, and hope.”
—Dylan Landis, author of Rainey Royal
“Liz Prato’s stories are filled with the lost, the lonely and the damned, and she makes all of them sing with a haunting grandeur.”
—Steve Almond, author of Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow
“I’ll remember the name Liz Prato and not hesitate to join her again on the page.”
—Denise Hill, New Pages
"Prato’s . . . language is breezy and deceptively casual, while her content is visceral. She reminds us that hope is bigger than our relative smallness.”
—Laryssa Wirstiuk, Atticus Review
“A brilliant collection.”
—JR Scrafford, Washington Independent Review of Books
ISBN: 9781942436690
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
252 pages