An Evening with Mary Morris, Author of "Gateway to the Moon"

Acclaimed novelist Mary Morris joins us for her book THE RED HOUSE

Books & Books and the Books & Books Literary Foundation are proud to present an evening with Mary Morris discussing The Red House (Doubleday, $28).

***Please note: This event will take place at the Books & Books in Coral Gables at 265 Aragon Ave. Tickets are FREE and books will be available for purchase at the event. Want your copy early or can't make it in-person? Order your copy online here.

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.

Mary Morris is the author of numerous works of fiction, including the novels Gateway to the Moon , The Jazz Palace , A Mother's Love , and House Arrest , and of nonfiction, including the travel classic Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone . Morris is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature and the 2016 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Susana Behar is a Miami-based singer specializing in Sephardic music and the Cuban and South American folk traditions of her upbringing. Passionate about the dynamic nature of traditional music and its connection to history and storytelling, she has performed across North and South America, Israel, and Japan. Her work has been featured in films, radio programs, music festivals and collaborative performances, including at the Kennedy Center’s first celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month in May 2024.

Awarded the Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in 2015, she served as Artist-in-Residence at HistoryMiami Museum in 2020 and has held the same role at the Deering Estate since 2023. Behar has recorded three albums: La Galana i la Mar (2009) , At The Crossroads, Live (2016) , and TAPIZ (2019) .