Prologue It was Uncle Alexis who started it all - this imaginative reconstruction of the woman who wore pearls in her hair, the matriarch who ruled the Mahana family for three generations. Poor Uncle Alex. The Italians would have called him un sperbo uomo, a superb man, and so he was. But it was he who without knowing started this journey into the past and into the dynamics of an astonishing family.

Father Blain said that all families are somewhat like jungles. So it is with mine, but I have made it even more of a jungle by mingling fiction with fact, like saprophytic vines twining the trunks of already dead trees. I think the matriarch herself would have approved of this. After all, she was the one who turned by own life into fiction from fact.

This book is in a reasonably good 2nd hand condition It is an ex-library book it has Library stamps etc. throughout - The book has been plastic covered for protection - it has been read and handled - lightly discoloured/tanned and marked

10/12/17 SG