The View From Lake Como

The View from Lake Como (2025) is a novel by Adriana Trigiani. The story follows Giuseppina (Jess) Capodimonte Baratta, an Italian American divorcee from Lake Como, New Jersey, as she loses her uncle, inherits the family marble business, gets investigated by the FBI, unearths family secrets, and moves to Carrara, Italy. Tired of conforming to social and domestic roles that make her feel anxious and unfulfilled, Jess wants to find what makes her—not her parents, ex-husband, or tight-knit community—happy. The novel explores Prioritizing Courage Over Conformity, The Damaging Nature of Family Secrets, and Independence as a Catalyst for Transformation.

The View from Lake Como is Trigiani’s 19th novel. She comes from a large Italian American family and is a New York Times best-selling author whose works often focus on love, the spiritual nature of craftsmanship and work, and family relationships.

This guide uses the Penguin Random House 2025 hardcover edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death and pregnancy loss.

Plot Summary

Jess just began online therapy at Thera-Me. She is recently divorced and a family “people pleaser.” She lives in her parents’ basement and cooks, cleans, and babysits. She is named after her maiden aunt, Giuseppina, whose life wasn’t her own either. The therapist has Jess keeping a journal, and she writes about a time when her mother, Philomena, picked her up from school and Jess had a panic attack. Uncle Louie is her boss at Capodimonte Marble and Stone in Lake Como, New Jersey. He tells her that he wants her to visit the Italian quarries with him and take over the business.

After Jess and Louie run into Bobby Bilancia, Jess’s ex-husband, her dad takes her home. Jess fears that her parents will try to stop her from going to Italy. She works on her journal, writing about finding an apartment. When Louie and Lil, his wife, arrive, he says he’s taking Jess to Italy. Phil wants to join them, but Jess says no. Her siblings, Connie and Joe, and their families arrive. As Jess serves dinner, she feels like Zia Giuseppina. Then Louie has a heart attack.

Jess can’t imagine life without Louie. He wakes up and tells Jess that she’ll inherit everything when Lil dies and the business when he does. He tells her about the “Elegant Gangster,” a secondary corporation he set up to resell marble remnants. He puts the money in offshore accounts and hasn’t paid taxes on it. Louie tells her where to find the company materials just before he dies. After Louie’s funeral, an FBI detective named Campovilla arrives to talk to Jess about the Elegant Gangster. The next day, Joe Jr.—a lawyer—and Jess drive to Lil’s so she can gather paperwork for the FBI. Later, Jess realizes that her parents knew what Louie did. He said Jess was his heir, so they let him use her name.

Jess is angry. Her parents also changed their will so that the house goes to Jess alone because they used her college money to pay for Joe’s law school. Though he paid them back, they used that money for other necessities. Jess feels that she needed to go away to college—she attended a local college and lived at home instead of going to Rutgers—because independence would have helped her anxiety and she wouldn’t have married Bobby. She makes immediate plans to go to Italy, feeling free for the first time.

Conor Kerrigan, Louie’s marble supplier, drives Jess to Carrara. He takes her to stay with Laura Strazza, where she meets Laura’s son, Angelo, a gilder. The next morning, Jess draws the piazza and watches the sunrise. She feels closer to her grandmothers in Italy. Later, she and Conor go to the quarry and meet Mauro LaFortezza. It’s the first time Jess has lived alone, and she realizes that solitude isn’t scary.

When Jess visits Angelo’s studio, they talk, and he kisses her. A kitten follows her home, and she adopts it, naming it Smokey. She’s never been able to have a pet before. Jess writes about the moment her parents told her they lost her college money in a “bad market.” She was packed and ready to go, but her father asked her to delay. Laura tells Jess that she cannot keep Smokey, so Jess decides to move. Later, Jess helps Laura get through a panic attack and realizes that she hasn’t had one since she arrived.

Jess writes about doing her mother’s shopping when she ran into her mother-in-law, who said Phil still dropped off Bobby’s favorite chicken cutlets. At that point, she stopped talking to her mom. Now, the therapist suggests that Jess ignore her family, build herself up, and then see how she feels, but Jess doesn’t want to abandon her family relationships. Campovilla asks for help locating Googs, one of Louie’s business associates, but she doesn’t know where he is located.

Jess remembers how Louie ordered Jess and Phil to make up after his mother died. Phil revealed that Jess was born early and spent seven weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU); Phil never told her because the doctor said it could worsen her anxiety. Jess began to understand that this was why her parents always held her back. In the present, Jess finds a note from Laura letting her know that she can keep Smokey. Laura invites Jess to dinner, and Dalia, Angelo’s girlfriend, is there too. Later, Jess calls Lil to thank her for all she’s done for her, but Lil tells her to stay away until she can tell her family to go to hell. Laura takes Jess to see where her Grandma Cap was born.

Angelo moves to Milan, and Laura and Jess visit him for Christmas. Jess feels guilty about missing the holiday at home, as she is usually responsible for the tree, shopping, and cookies. She learns that Googs got two years in prison. In Milan, Angelo reveals that he broke up with Dalia because he has feelings for Jess. A few days later, Jess goes alone to Italy’s Lake Como, wanting time to think. Bobby Bilancia arrives, having tracked her down from Carrara. She tells him she’s happy, but he says she belongs in New Jersey. Angelo finds them eating together at the hotel and storms off. That night, Bobby kisses her, but there is no spark. She puts him on a plane back to New Jersey.

Jess works for Mauro for three months. Angelo doesn’t answer her texts. Campovilla is wrapping up the investigation into the Elegant Gangster. Jess finds an old photograph of Louie on Mauro’s desk, and Mauro says the man is his father. He says that “Luigi” died before he was born, and Jess recognizes Mauro’s mother, Claudia, from some of Louie’s old pictures. Claudia says Luigi died in a mining accident; her father broke the news to her, and she found out she was pregnant after Luigi’s death. The therapist suggests Jess needn’t reveal the truth about Louie or Mauro, and she tries to explain the importance of family and honesty.

Angelo reaches out to Jess, wanting to fix things. The next day, he drives her to Claudia’s, and Jess reveals that Luigi didn’t die in Carrara, but went home to New Jersey. Claudia is shocked by her father’s lie, and Mauro is angry. Angelo declares his love for Jess, willing to wait for her to make up her mind. Joe calls to tell Jess that Lil died, so Jess flies back to New Jersey.

Everyone rushes outside to greet Jess when she arrives. She delivers Lil’s eulogy. At the luncheon, Jess serves coffee and dessert, but she feels no need for validation. Suddenly, Mauro and Angelo arrive, and Mauro introduces himself as Phil’s nephew. Angelo wants to know why Jess didn’t tell him she was leaving. Jess’s friend, Lisa, reveals that she’s been dating Bobby, and Jess is genuinely happy for them.

Later, Jess kisses Angelo, and Phil asks if she’s happy. Phil says she wanted Jess to marry Bobby because she knew he would never take Jess away. Jess feels she had to leave home to grow up and to teach them all how to treat her. At breakfast the next day, Connie says she wants to buy Grandma Cap’s house. Joe’s wife is pregnant, and they want to name the baby Giuseppina. Jess goes to visit Googs, who tells her that they planned to pay the taxes eventually. When Jess gets back to Louie’s car, she sees his spirit in the driver’s seat. She asks why he did it, since he didn’t need the money. He says he worried about her and her siblings, that they gave him purpose. Then he vanishes. When Jess returns to Lil and Louie’s, Angelo is there. He says he loves her, and they kiss until Jess’s mother gets them for dinner.

A year later, Jess is renovating the farmhouse where Grandma Cap was born and going to school in Pisa for an architecture degree. She is happy and knows her worth doesn’t depend on pleasing others. Her family and Angelo are all there. Jess asks Angelo to move in with her, and he agrees. Everyone heads to the quarry together. Jess writes a letter to her therapists. She tells them that they helped her learn to live.