Fiction. In the wake of a chaotic decade in New York, Netti and her eleven-year-old son, Ian, find themselves on the shores of Malta, a picturesque and antiquated Mediterranean island where the last world war still thrums in the nerves of its residents. When they witness an accident on the streets of Valletta, Netti becomes enmeshed in a mystery of old-world family alliances on an island little touched by time and outsiders. Faced with her own transgressions in the shape of reckless relationships and a constant pursuit of the bottom of the wine bottle, Netti desperately seeks to vindicate the crime and better herself as mother to her precocious, adolescent son. Detailed in sharp yet rich prose and a style reminiscent of Roberto Bolaño and Paul Bowles, ON THE ISLAND AT THE CENTER OF THE CENTER OF THE WORLD navigates a confounding existential crisis and the ultimate futility of the desire to escape oneself.