All Our Yesterdays Summary

All Our Yesterdays is divided chronologically and geographically. Part 1 describes the last school years and earliest adult experiences of the children of a middle-class provincial family in the late 1930’s. Part 2 takes Anna and her husband away to the southern village of San Costanzo. From their perspective the reader observes the impact of World War II on the family and on Italian society as a whole.

There is no single protagonist in the novel, which details the lives of the children of two neighboring families. Anna’s father, a widower, is an anti-Fascist who spends the last years of his life writing his memoirs, which will never be published. Anna’s sister, Concettina, is preoccupied with her boyfriends and eventually marries Emilio, arousing the political disapproval of several male members of the family. Anna meets Giuma, the youngest son of the family across the street, on the day of her father’s funeral. Giuma’s household consists of the old father who owns a local soap factory, his much younger wife, Mammina, Giuma’s elder brother, Emanuele, a rebellious sister, Amalia, and a mysterious German refugee, Franz, who is Mammina’s lover.

As Nazi Germany stands poised for the invasion of France, young Anna’s brother Ippolito, Emanuele, and their friend Danilo form a loose anti-Fascist group, whose program consists largely of reading clandestine newspapers behind closed doors. Ippolito becomes the first casualty of the war. Unable to accept the collapse of France and Italy’s collaboration with the Nazis, he shoots himself one morning on...