A House in the Mountains: The Women Who Liberated Italy from Fascism

By Caroline Moorehead

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

The extraordinary story of four courageous women who helped form the Italian Resistance against the Nazis and the Fascists during the Second World War.

In the late summer of 1943, when Italy changed sides in WWII and the Germans, now their enemies, occupied the north of the country, an Italian Resistance was born. Ada, Frida, Silvia and Bianca were four young Piedmontese women who joined the Resistance, living secretively in the mountains surrounding Turin. They were not alone. Between 1943 and 1945, as the Allies battled their way north, thousands of men and women throughout occupied Italy rose up and fought to liberate their country from the German invaders and their Fascist collaborators. What made the partisan war all the more extraordinary was the number of women in its ranks.

The bloody civil war that ensued across the country pitted neighbour against neighbour, and brought out the best and worst in Italian society. The courage shown by the partisans was exemplary, and eventually bound them together as a coherent fighting force. And the women's contribution was invaluable—they fought, carried messages and weapons, provided safe houses, laid mines and took prisoners. Ada's house deep in the mountains became a meeting place and refuge for many of them. The death rattle of Mussolini's two decades of Fascist rule—with its corruption, greed and anti-Semitism—was unrelentingly violent and brutal, but for the partisan women it was also a time of camaraderie and equality, pride and optimism. They would prove, to themselves and to the world, what resolve, tenacity and above all exceptional courage could achieve.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jan 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9780735279735

Caroline Moorehead

Caroline Moorehead is the New York Times bestselling author of the Resistance Quartet, which includes A Bold and Dangerous Family, Village of Secrets, and A Train in Winter, as well as Human Cargo, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. An acclaimed biographer, she has written for the New York Review of Books, The Guardian, and The Independent. She lives in London and Italy.

Reviews for A House in the Mountains

[2wondery_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

If I had recalled the other Moorehead title I read, I wouldn’t have bothered. She has an editing problem. You get much more than you think you’re getting. Here, Moorehead feels she needs to re-tell the entire story of the war in Italy and the rest of the region. Her coverage of her supposed main characters is spotty and she keeps slipping away to tell all the mens stories as well.

[muddyboy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a well researched and written book for a narrow audience. My only complaint is the book's subtitle "the women who liberated Italy from Fascism". The insertion of the word "helped" would have made the cover less misleading. The book generally follows the lives of four women who become members of the resistance against Mussolini and his government during World War 2 and after with their disappointment that women didn't get their deserved credit and the benefits they hoped for in post war Italy. Well worth reading if this topic appeals to you.