While Danielle Trussoni’s spellbinding novel \
While Danielle Trussoni’s spellbinding novel « The Ancestor » could be categorized as a mystery, further definition remains, well, something of a mystery. On first note, Trussoni’s novel smacks amazingly of Joyce Carol Oates’ labyrinthine 1980 novel « Bellefleur » with its unspoken family secrets. Read on, and you feel like you’re entering the world of the captivating film « Last of the Dogmen. » Read further, and you feel as though you’re living in Jean M. Auel’s « Clan of the Cave Bear. » Well, Trussoni’s novel has hints of those works but much more. « The Ancestor » is the story of Alberta “Bert” Monte, who learns that her ancestral name is Alberta Isabelle Eleanor Vittoria Montebianco, when she inherits a vast estate and castle in the shadow of Mount Blanc in the Italian Alps.
