{"product_id":"family-lexicon-9781590178386","title":"Family Lexicon","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eA masterpiece of European literature that blends family memoir and fiction\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAn Italian family, sizable, with its routines and rituals, crazes, pet phrases, and stories, doubtful, comical, indispensable, comes to life in the pages of Natalia Ginzburg's \u003ci\u003eFamily Lexicon\u003c\/i\u003e. Giuseppe Levi, the father, is a scientist, consumed by his work and a mania for hiking--when he isn't provoked into angry remonstration by someone misspeaking or misbehaving or wearing the wrong thing. Giuseppe is Jewish, married to Lidia, a Catholic, though neither is religious; they live in the industrial city of Turin where, as the years pass, their children find ways of their own to medicine, marriage, literature, politics. It is all very ordinary, except that the background to the story is Mussolini's Italy in its steady downward descent to race law and world war. The Levis are, among other things, unshakeable anti-fascists. That will complicate their lives. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003ci\u003eFamily Lexicon\u003c\/i\u003e is about a family and language--and about storytelling not only as a form of survival but also as an instrument of deception and domination. The book takes the shape of a novel, yet everything is true. \"Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist, I have felt impelled at once to destroy  it],\" Ginzburg tells us at the start. \"The places, events, and people are all real.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/25\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781590178386\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 224\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.52lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 7.90h x 5.00w x 0.60d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 02\/01\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 02\/13\/2017\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Natalia Ginzburg","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":36660819689628,"sku":"9781590178386","price":14.41,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_927cdad1-0456-4973-863f-70ac9d3ac952.jpg?v=1603897618","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/family-lexicon-9781590178386","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}