1944, Paris. Following 9-year-old Brigitte Sureau's release from a Nazi internment camp, the reunited Sureaus become France's postwar standard for reconciliation. This notoriety veils the family's quiet disintegration, leading to Brigitte's lifelong exile on the Italian island of Elba. Fifty years later, a chance encounter in Rome exposes fact from fiction forcing Brigitte to reconsider the single decision that shaped her life.

The second in Banks's Elba trilogy, Ere I Saw Elba explores the lasting impact of childhood trauma that is often compounded by the coping strategies we use to suppress the memory of that trauma.