Purgatoire

Based on Prato's ancestors, Purgatoire paints a gripping portrait of Italian immigrants in rural America, and how the shame and secrecy of one man's abandonment haunts a family for generations. A single mother fights to reunite with her children, an immortal cat yearns for kin, a bootlegger's recklessness devastates his family, queer folk escape to secret spaces, and stranded spirits narrate, converse, and sometimes violate the laws of their realm: they interfere with the fate of the living.

Melding familial research with richly imagined fiction, Prato weaves a mesmerizing story of the complex relationships between parents and children, the transcendent need for connection and redemption, and what we owe to our true desires.