The Red House

By Mary Morris

Award-winning novelist Mary Morris weaves together an unsolved family mystery, a poignant coming-of-age story, and a little-known corner of World War II history in this lyrical novel of family, loss and, ultimately, love.

Thirty years ago, Laura's mother, Viola, went missing. She left behind her purse, her keys and her mysterious paintings of a red house. Viola was never found, and her family never recovered. Laura, an artist herself, held on to the paintings. On the back of each work, her mother scrawled in Italian, "I will not be here forever." The family never understood what Viola meant.

Decades later, at a crossroads in her marriage and her life, Laura returns to Italy, where her parents met after World War II. Laura spent the earliest years of her childhood there before the family moved to New Jersey and settled into an American dream that eventually became a nightmare. Viola, who claimed to be an orphan, staunchly refused to speak of her life before marriage.

In Italy, Laura finds herself on a strange scavenger hunt to solve the puzzle of her mother's lost years. She is certain that the paintings of the red house hold the answer to her mother's past and her search takes her from her hometown of Brindisi, deep into Puglia where she encounters a man who knew her mother and who illuminates little-known secrets of Italy's Second World War.

Blending elements of true crime with settings that evoke Elena Ferrante, Laura follows her mother's trajectory as she ventures north to Naples, Turin and finally home. Along the way, she confronts the dark truth of her mother's story and at last makes sense of her own.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385544987
• ISBN13: 9780385544986
• Release Date: May 2025
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Thought provoking

This was kind of an odd story. I thought it was mostly going to be about Laura going searching for her mother, Viola, who disappeared so many years ago. New evidence has come up and renewed Laura's desire to travel back to Italy and search for the Red House that was in all of Viola's paintings. But then it switches to Viola and her childhood and the atrocities from WW2 that happened to her and her family. I did end up liking Viola's viewpoint best and how strong she was to live through all the awful things that happened which also explained why she did what she did when she disappeared. Laura was not as likable, even if her mother's disappearance shaped her life and how some of the bad choices she made she linked back to her mother. Though it ends on a more positive note as Laura is able to find closure about the mystery of her mother and is willing to work through her own issues now. Since most of this book seems to be stream of consciousness, I did have issues figuring out who the narrator was, as it switched, with no notification between Laura present day, Laura childhood, then Viola just before she disappears and her own childhood. It was a meandering story and left me thinking about all that happened after finishing the book. The narrator did a good job of making the story real, even if it was hard to tell when the characters changed and the story jumped to a different time. The narrator had a nice, soothing voice. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to listen to this audiobook.