In the 1990s, Gaia’s family moves from the neglected peripheries of Rome to an idyllic lakeside town in search of a new life that will lift them out of poverty. Each of them bears their own scars: Gaia’s mother is fiercely determined to secure a better future for her children at any cost; her father, a once proud man, now suffers in bitter silence after a devastating accident; her anarchist older brother rebels against the political apathy he sees at home; and her young twin brothers wordlessly bear witness to a family in decay. When Gaia meets two local girls, Agata and Carlotta, the trio builds a fragile friendship. Gaia’s encounters with callous boys and contemptuous teachers convince her that she might always be an outsider—excluded from a privileged life and beyond the possibility of happiness. Winner of the Campiello Prize, The Bitter Water of the Lake is an unflinching portrait of a generation striving to make a place for themselves in a world markedly different from the one their parents promised them.