Welcome to Papercut, glad you found us!
Based in the Sweden, we ship worldwide.
So let’s get off to a good start:

Go ahead!
Handpicked books, magazines, films and details
Choose currency
Menu
Search

Things That Happened Before the Earthquake: A Novel

Author: Chiara Barzini
Hardcover, 2017
275 SEK
Non-stock item - Delivery estimate 7 to 14 days
SWEDEN SHIPPING Shipping Class 1 = 40 SEK
Shipping Class 2 = 60 SEK
Shipping Class 3 = 90 SEK EUROPE SHIPPING Shipping Class 1 = 100 SEK (approx 10 EUR)
Shipping Class 2 = 150 SEK (approx 15 EUR)
Shipping Class 3 = 200 SEK (approx 20 EUR) OUTSIDE EUROPE SHIPPING Shipping Class 1 = 150 SEK (approx 15 USD)
Shipping Class 2 = 200 SEK (approx 20 USD)
Shipping Class 3 = 300 SEK (approx 30 USD)

NOTE: You can buy as many items you want within the same shipping class. Read more » ×

Welcome to LA? Nineties’ Hollywood gets an Italian makeover in this poignant and ruefully funny coming-of-age novel featuring a teenage girl who’s on shaky ground—in more ways than one.

Mere weeks after the 1992 riots that laid waste to Los Angeles, Eugenia, a typical Italian teenager, is rudely yanked from her privileged Roman milieu by her hippie-ish filmmaker parents and transplanted to the strange suburban world of the San Fernando Valley. With only the Virgin Mary to call on for guidance as her parents struggle to make it big, Hollywood fashion, she must navigate her huge new public high school, complete with Crips and Bloods and Persian gang members, and a car-based environment of 99-cent stores and obscure fast-food franchises and all-night raves. She forges friendships with Henry, who runs his mother’s movie memorabilia store, and the bewitching Deva, who introduces her to the alternate cultural universe that is Topanga Canyon. And then the 1994 earthquake rocks the foundations not only of Eugenia’s home but of the future she’d been imagining for herself.

“An Italian teenage girl shows up in 1990s Southern California in this culturally astute, strong-voiced novel. Barzini, truly a writer to watch, positions herself astride both American and Sicilian cultures, and packs this visceral book with strong sensations from both. The novel and its heroine, Eugenia, are deeply seductive.”
New York Times

“Chiara Barzini writes with a voice that is both tense and open. The effect is surprising, subversive, and singular.”
—Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Interpreter of Maladies

“Chiara Barzini has pulled off that most dazzling balancing act: combining a deliciously entertaining plot with effortlessly elegant prose. She has an extraordinarily keen eye for cultural nuance. Through her alter-ego Eugenia we come to discover a California as wildly foreign to us as it is to her. A brilliant, sexy, and unexpected take on the immigrant bildungsroman.”
—Taiye Selasi, author of Ghana Must Go

Close
  • ISBN: 9780385542272
  • Publisher: Doubleday
  • Language: English
  • Year: 2017
  • Pages: 320

Sign up for our weekly newsletter and we will keep you updated with inspiration, news and exclusive offers.

This site uses cookies (cookies) to ensure the best user experience. If you continue to use the site, you accept the use of cookies. Read more »

Ok