Juliet Grames, THE SEVEN OR EIGHT DEATHS OF STELLA FORTUNA

This is a debut novel (that gracefully slips into almost-memoir by the end), but it doesn't read like it--probably because Grames's day job is editing for Soho Press. With a profoundly assured narrative voice, she begins her tale in the early 1900s, in a small town that clings to the rocks of a hill in Italy. Stella (based upon the author's grandmother) is the eldest daughter of the Fortuna family, which eventually emigrates to the US, where they settle in the northeast. The book is organized (ostensibly) around Stella's eight brushes with death, and at first I thought it was merely a device that served as a counterpoint to the heroine's suggestive name; by the end I realized its thematic importance. Stella is a fully-realized character, and we watch her change, grow and diminish, and warp her interpretive framework in response to the often painful events of her life. A clear-eyed, unsentimental, but compassionate view of a family rife with dysfunction, loyalty, suspicion, and love. I would recommend to fans of Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Strout, and Mary Beth Keane.