This powerful novel is set against the background of Italy from 1939 to 1944, from the anxious months before the country entered the war, through the war years, to the allied victory with its trailing wake of anxiety, disappointment, and grief. In the foreground are the members of two families. One is rich, the other is not. In All Our Yesterdays, as in all of Ms. Ginzburg’s novels, terrible things happensuicide, murder, air raids, and bombings. But seemingly less overwhelming events, like a family quarrel, adultery, or a deception, are given equal space, as if to say that, to a victim, adultery and air raids can be equally maiming. All Our Yesterdays gives a sharp portrait of a society hungry for change, but betrayed by war.
