The Bay of Noon
Shirley Hazzard
Picador
Shirley Hazzard's classic novel of love and memory<br><br>A young  Englishwoman working in Naples, Jenny comes to Italy fleeing a history  that threatened to undo her. Alone in the fabulously ruined city, she  idly follows up a letter of introduction from an acquaintance and thus  changes her life forever. Through the letter, she meets Giocanda, a  beautiful and gifted writer, and Gianni, a famous Roman film director  and Giocanda's lover. At work she encounters Justin, a Scotsman whose  inscrutability Jenny finds mysteriously attractive. As she becomes  increasingly involved in the lives of these three, she discovers that  the past--and the patterns of a lifetime--are not easily discarded.