This universally acclaimed novel - hailed for its evocative descriptions, its compelling characters, its intricate plot - transports the reader to Elba, an island off the northwest coast of Italy, in the mid-1950s. It is here that an American man, seduced by the wealth promised in the island's surfeit of semiprecious tourmaline, has travelled with his wife and four young sons, and now struggles to establish a homestead and a fortune. But the allure of one of Elba's other treasures - a bewitching local girl - derails the visitor and threatens to destroy his family.