A NEW YORK TIMES MOST ANTICIPATED NOVEL OF 2026. ''An instant classic, Valeria Luiselli is at her bravest and most sincere'' SAMANTA SCHWEBLIN From the award-winning author of Lost Children Archive, Valeria Luiselli, comes a wondrous, tender and expansive new novel about family, memory and time. A mother and a daughter take off on a road trip after the collapse of a marriage. Their journey begins in Sicily during a summer of rapidly-changing winds, volcanic rumbles and sudden tempests. How do you begin again, the mother wonders, if you got the beginning wrong ? The trip soon becomes a quest for origins - not just to the familial past across continents, languages and generations, but also further back to a mythical and even geological past. With her daughter coming into her own and her mother showing signs of dementia, the narrator finds herself confronting the primary questions of life: How do stories shape our children''s imaginations? How do we situate ourselves deeply in the world while accepting our transience in it? How are a family''s memories made and what happens when they disappear? A road novel, a mother-daughter story, a mystery, Beginning Middle End is a shapeshifting novel that offers an exhilarating testament to the power and instability of the stories we hold most dear.

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Valeria Luiselli

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'Mind-expanding and heart-expanding; A summer book for life' ALI SMITH

**'An instant classic'**SERVICE95

**'A stunning shape-shifting marvel'**MAX PORTER

**'Bewitching'**FINANCIAL TIMES

**'Mesmerising'**TLS

From the award-winning author of Lost Children Archive, Valeria Luiselli, comes a wondrous new novel about family, love and starting over.

All I had to do, or so I thought, was to answer a simple question: How do I reinvent it, the story, our lives?

A mother and a daughter take off on a road trip after the collapse of a marriage. Their journey begins in Sicily during a summer of rapidly-changing winds, volcanic rumbles and sudden tempests. How do you begin again, the mother wonders, if you got the beginning wrong? The trip soon becomes a quest for origins - not just through their family history, but also further back to a mythical and even geological past.

With her daughter leaving childhood behind and her mother beginning to show signs of dementia, the narrator finds herself at a crossroads. She must now ask herself: How do we situate ourselves deeply in the world while accepting our transience in it? How are a family's memories made and what happens when they disappear?

A road novel, a mother-daughter story, a radical portrait of starting over, in all its forms, Beginning Middle End offers an exhilarating testament to the power of the stories and the loves we hold most dear.

A hottest book of the summer as seen in New York Times, Guardian, Vogue, Elle, AnOther, New Yorker, Glossary, Town & Country and more.

**'What sets Valeria Luiselli's new novel apart is its clarity, its immediacy, its vividness'**COLM TÓIBÍN, author of Long Island

**'An affecting novel for anyone ... seeking their own new beginning'**FINANCIAL TIMES

**'A beautiful, maybe perfect novel'**TOMMY ORANGE, author of Wandering Stars

**'Dazzles on every page'**KATIE KITAMURA, author of Audition

'Astonishing ... a lightning bolt of a book' DOIREANN NÍ GHRÍOFA, author of Said the Dead

'Beautiful, funny and tender ... I loved it' EMMA HEALY, author of Sweat

**'Among the best books to read on holiday ... beautiful'THEGLOSSARY

**'The kind of novel you wish would never come to an end'**SPECTATOR

**'One of the country's most gifted novelists'**LA TIMES

**'Rich, lyrical and moving'**ANOTHER

What readers are saying **** **** **** :

'Just about as perfect as fiction comes'

'Intoxicating ... the perfect summer read for someone looking for a book to get lost in'

'Absolutely magnificent'

'Literary fiction at its finest'