Valeria Luiselli's Novel 'Beginning Middle End' Explores Family History in Sicily

Valeria Luiselli’s fourth novel, *Beginning Middle End*, follows an unnamed writer and her pre‑teen daughter on a road‑trip through Sicily. The narrative weaves the pair’s personal histories with the island’s volcanic landscape, ancient myths and the legacy of a mosaic tile featuring the shape‑shifting water god Proteus that was passed down through the writer’s maternal line.

The book blends short, evocative chapters whose headings draw from Pliny’s *Natural History* and interlaces snapshots of migrant life, store‑keeper encounters and the looming threat of Mount Etna. Themes of family memory, ecological uncertainty and intergenerational reconstruction are explored as the mother and daughter search for origins across continents and generations.

A public conversation and signing with Luiselli was held at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn on July 28 2026, where she discussed the novel’s structure, its mythic references and the personal resonances that inform the story.