Thirteen year-old Sandro is from Northern Italy, the only son of a family that in just two generations has achieved significant wealth.
One night, during a sailing trip through the Mediterranean, Sandro falls into the sea, and the others on board notice too late. When they sail back to look for him, there is no sign of the boy. Although given up for dead, Sandro has been rescued by a fishing boat carrying illegal aliens immigrants to the Italian shores.
Thus begins an adventurous return to Italy. Having confronted hitherto unknown expectations, rejections, hopes and disillusionments, Sandro has crossed over that thin line between adolescence and adulthood. And once over that threshold, nothing is like it was before.
From the eponymous novel by Maria Pace Ottieri.