FONSECA

Winter of 1952. Penelope Fitzgerald’s life is crumbling: her husband — brilliant, yet consumed by alcohol — can no longer support the household; debts are mounting, and she, pregnant with her third child, sees almost no way out. Then, an unusual letter arrives: the Delaney sisters — two elderly Irishwomen who own a silver mine in northern Mexico — claim they wish to leave a life-saving inheritance to her son, Valpy. Thus, Penelope crosses the ocean with the boy to Fonseca, a remote estate deep in the desert. But nothing there matches what was promised. Living together in the house are fortune seekers, an overly ambitious American couple, wandering artists — among them Edward Hopper and his wife — merchants, opportunists... and a man who claims to be the rightful heir. For three months — between the Day of the Dead and Candlemas — Penelope must navigate a web of intrigues, fragile loyalties, and a landscape straight out of a novel. Fonseca becomes her journey of initiation — the unexpected prelude to the career of one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers.