DARK INHERITANCE
Elaine Feinstein
'An accomplished novelist in complete control of her craft'
Stella Tillyard, The Times
'A wonderfully readable thriller which marries glamour and danger, with a heroine who nearly loses the meaning of her own life as she pursues the truth about the lives of others. Feinstein writes fascinatingly about the power of autobiography, and the risks that telling your own story can bring.'
Helen Dunmore
Rome in June. Yellow stones soaked in heat and history. into the city steps Rachel O'Malley, commissioned to interview the reclusive young literary sensation Emanuel Cellini whose first novel transposes the story of Phaedra's incestuous love to the twenty-first century. What, readers wonder, are the links between the events in this book and Emanuel's own life as the son of Gorgio Cellini, one of Italy's top politicians?
Rachel too lives in the shadow of a famous father, the novelist Frank O'Malley, and has spent a lifetime choosing men unwisely. As she pursues Cellini family secrest she makes uncomfortable discoveries about desire and danger, her own inner confusions, and the nature of the bond between mothers and sons.
Elaine Feinstein
is a poet, novelist and biographer. In 1980 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 1990 she received a Cholmondeley Award for Poetry and was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Leicester, She lives in London