Isobel

Ranging from the aristocratic venues of Milan to the raucous backstreets of Venice, Enright's latest (after The Walled Garden) will captivate readers with the struggle of its young English heroine to free the artist within her. It's 1966: Isobel Jefferson, intending to pursue her art studies, leaves her unhappy childhood behind for a job in Milan as governess to the wealthy Fischer family. Soon, however, she becomes emmeshed in the madness of Nina Fischer, whose experiences in the German death camps haunt her with increasing ferocity. Isobel finds refuge with a kindly Milanese family of great wealth who look upon her as a daughter, launch her into society and introduce her to the young Furio Bonetti, whom she marries. When the Fischers inadvertently cause the death of Furio and her estrangement from his family, Isobel tells no one she is pregnant and sets forth on an odyssey of independence, sacrifice and self-discovery that, years later, culminates in her emergence as a world-famous artist. Enright's vividly depicted milieu and insightfully rendered cast yield an engrossing novel. (Aug.)