Paperback Edition
ISBN: 9781558611740
Publication Date: 08-01-1997

Afterword by Janet Zandy

Recovering in the hospital after a mysterious accident, retired San Francisco teacher Anna Giardino retraces the events of her life. As she recovers tender but painful memories of her working-class Italian American childhood, her years teaching and eventual disillusionment, she arrives at a new affirmation of her work and life. May Sarton calls the novel a "divining rod into the springs of education. . . . We find ourselves confronted with the grandeur and despair of what it is to be a teacher."

"A very well-written novel of sensibility that squarely confronts the question of individual and societal values in a fast-changing world. A fine book." —Library Journal

"Identifying with Miss Giardino, as all readers are bound to do, we find ourselves confronted with the grandeur and despair of what it is to be a teacher. The novel is a divining rod into the springs of education." —May Sarton, author of Journal of a Solitude

"Bryant's prose is clear, direct, and deceptively easy, rich with suggestion and suspense. How Miss Giardino solves the mystery makes for a most satisfying book." —San Francisco Examiner