About a dozen literary vignettes about memory, family, place, and the art of noticing.
From the author of the internationally acclaimed book club favorite, The Covert Buccaneer comes this luminous collection of slice-of-life vignettes that capture fleeting moments before they vanish—the small, human intervals that rarely announce their importance until memory claims them.
Written across years and places—from Italy to Chicago to the shifting neighborhoods of San Francisco—these brief pieces preserve ordinary life with uncommon attentiveness: an afternoon in a mischievous Fiat, commuters bound by tacit ritual, a house that disappeared without warning, a mother writing to children she worries will forget they were loved, a recipe rescued while no one was paying attention, and a city corner where children speak Italian. Each vignette stands alone while covertly conversing with the others, forming a mosaic of lived experience.
The collection resists agenda and argument. It doesn't explain itself or rush toward relevance. Instead, it invites readers into a series of remembered rooms—intimate spaces where time slows, attention sharpens, and the ordinary briefly becomes resplendent.
Una Dozzina rewards browsing, revisiting, and serendipity. Though the order of pieces is carefully curated, readers may open it anywhere and linger. It will speak to anyone who has loved a place that disappeared, a person they could not keep, or a moment only recognized once it had become memory.
Ideal for readers of literary nonfiction, flash prose, and contemplative essays—and for admirers of works such as From Scratch by Tembi Locke, Harper Lee's The Land of Sweer Forever, and the reflective lineage of writers like Natalia Ginzburg and Joan Didion. With occasional flashes of the compressed, observational clarity found in García Márquez’s shorter chronicles, this collection honors the unsung art of noticing and the enduring beauty, tragedy, and hushed magic of what passes.
