Reminiscent of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and The Glass Castle, The Tale of Lucia Grandi, the Early Years is a poignant and powerful fictional coming of age story. We first see Lucia as an old woman. A young graduate student visits her and asks Lucia to recount her life's story, for she is doing her thesis on oral histories of ordinary people. Lucia insists she has nothing to tell, that her life was boring and uneventful. But unwilling to let go of a much-needed visitor, Lucia weaves a riveting tale of a beset and dysfunctional family and her survival in it. From scenes of immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century, to episodes from the depression and both world wars through the tumultuous sixties, Lucia paints a harsh but sympathetic picture of a family in crisis. While this is a story of the bleakness of ordinary lives, it is also a story of courage, resilience and the indominable human spirit.