SOUTH HADLEY, Massachusetts–Sara Gay Forden, a 1982 graduate of Mount Holyoke College and editor-in-chief of Italy's first lifestyle magazine for women, will discuss her new book, The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed, Saturday, September 16, at 3:00 PM at the Odyssey Bookshop.

In her gripping account of the ascent, collapse, and resurrection of the Gucci fashion dynasty, Forden takes readers behind the scenes of the Maurizio Gucci murder and trial during 1995 and 1998, respectively, exposing the passion, power, and vulnerability of the famous fashion family. The saga of high fashion, high finance, and personal tragedy spans the earliest days of Guccio Gucci's modest leather goods shop in the 1900s to the Gucci of today.

An English major who grew up in a diplomatic family that lived abroad, Forden enjoyed writing original works as an undergraduate and has fond memories of writing courses she took at MHC and Smith. After graduating from MHC, Forden worked in journalism and public relations for several years before pursuing a master's degree in international affairs and economics at Johns Hopkins University. After studying in Bologna, she moved to Rome as an intern with the Associated Press and began working at a financial newspaper in Milan in 1988. (She has lived in Milan since, settling there with her Italian husband and their daughter.) Forden went on to become first a business correspondent and, later, Milan bureau chief for Women's Wear Daily. Through these positions, she was drawn into the fashion industry and the Gucci story.