Sign-In
Cart
I Before E
Paperback
Series: The Elba Trilogy, Book 3
General FictionGeneral GLBTQIA Fiction
Publisher: Dot Dash Press
Published: Mar 11 2026
Pages: 382
Weight: 1.12
Height: 0.85 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
i before e, except by the sea,
where when drowning I may,
find padre. Padre!
The third novel in the Elba trilogy, I Before E tells the story of Paolo Viglietti, a young Italian-American immigrant whose desperate struggle to understand his father's drowning triggers a turbulent coming of age-one that ultimately leads him back to Italy to confront the family mysteries he's grappled with his entire life.
Set between 1986 and 2000, I Before E follows Paolo's journey from his suffocating childhood in Little Italy (New York City), to his teenage liberation in the West Village, to his college escape to UC Berkeley, and finally to his return to Italy and search for answers in Rome, Padua, and his hometown of Portoferraio, Elba.
__
Drew Banks's Elba Trilogy-Able Was I, Ere I Saw Elba, and I Before E-is a multigenerational literary fiction series set between New York, Paris, and across Italy, and exploring themes of identity, exile, and chosen family. While these novels can be read independently, there are several characters and situations threaded through the trilogy that add nuance and texture to each story, especially given these characters and situations are conveyed through the lens of the novels' different protagonists.
This genre-blending trilogy will captivate readers who enjoy LGBTQ+ literature, coming-of-age journeys, historical fiction, family drama, romance, mysteries, European settings, and evocative armchair travel storytelling.
Also from
Banks, Drew
Also in
General Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
Anniversaries, Volume 2: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, April 1968-August 1968
Johnson, Uwe
Paperback
Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose, and Diary Excerpts
Plath, Sylvia
Paperback
Selected Writings: Robert Musil: Young Torless, Three Women, the Perfecting of a Love, and Other Writings
Musil, Robert
Agee, Joel
Paperback
Before Gatsby: The First Twenty-Six Stories
Bruccoli, Matthew J.
Baughman, Judith
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Paperback