Sometimes when I acquire a new (to me) book, I can hardly wait to read it. Other times, it sits on my to-be-read shelf for months, maybe longer. This particular one, the third I’ve read by Adriana Trigiani, has been waiting for nearly four years. A note inside mentions that I bought it at a church bookstall as long ago as September 2012.
But I finally started to read ‘Queen of the big time’ about five days ago, and finished it this morning. At first I only read, as I usually do, for twenty minutes or so at bedtime. But I found that the characters got under my skin and I wanted to know where the story was going, so I picked it up at other random times through the day, and then read the last 100 pages or so in one sitting.
It’s the story of a young Italian American girl called Nella, who is the narrator of most of the novel. We first meet her in 1924 when she is fourteen, and eagerly awaiting a visit from her beloved school teacher. The local school only goes as far as seventh grade, but Nella’s teacher thinks she has the potential to go to the high school in the town three miles away. Nella and her family live on a farm, and she is the middle daughter of five.
The rest of the book is about Nella growing up and growing into adulthood and middle age. She makes a good friend at the high school, realises that her oldest sister isn’t as mean as she sometimes appears, recognises how hard her parents work… and has to make difficult decisions about work, study and love. It’s impossible to say much more without giving spoilers, but this is primarily a character-based book, based in part on reminiscences from the author’s father and grandmother.
The writing style is fairly slow paced, with descriptions that I sometimes skimmed, and conversations that felt, to me, entirely believable. I know almost nothing about the Italian American communities, but there’s an authentic touch that made them come alive in my mind. I particularly appreciated the insights into workers in a clothing factory, a topic which had not previously interested me at all. The author is skilled in painting pictures of people’s lives and occupations without any hint of being overtly educational or researched.
I am not much like Nella in personality: she’s outgoing, determined, confident in business, and extremely hard-working. I related more to her sister Elena, who is more of a shadowy character. But I very much enjoyed Nella’s take on life, the reasons for the decisions she makes, and her growing awareness of who she really is, something that doesn’t hit her fully until she’s in her fifties.
The Catholic Church has a big part to play in this novel, and I appreciated insights into the way the ceremonies happened, and how respected the priests were in this era. There’s no ‘preaching’, but a great deal of questioning, and a realistic view of the frailty of everyone, no matter how devout. There are some unexpected and tragic incidents in the novel, but they’re sensitively dealt with. Given the era and the circumstances, they’re probably realistic.
The ending is gentle and open, and there’s then a bittersweet epilogue, one I’m still not certain about. The book could have finished without it; yet this rounds it off in a way that helped bring it to completion.
Recommended to anyone who likes historical fiction based originally on real people, with no real plot other than the unfolding and developing of somebody’s life.
Re-printed recently in the US, though not currently in print in the UK. Widely available second-hand.
Review copyright 2016 Sue's Book Reviews
I first came across the name of Adriana Trigiani when Amazon recommended some of her books to me. So when I spotted a few of them inexpensively on a church bookstall nearly three years ago, it was an easy decision to buy them. I read one of them - Lucia, Lucia - soon afterwards. But the others have sat on my to-be-read shelf considerably longer than I had realised.
However, I finally picked up ‘Rococo’ a few days ago, and have read it in a couple of days. It’s rather a different story, set in 1970. It’s told in the first person by an almost-40-year-old Italian American called Bartolomeo, known as B to his friends and family. B is an interior designer, and he’s good. He has an eye for colour, and for matching homes with their owners, and he’s much in demand.
His dream for many years has been to redesign the Catholic church which he has belonged to, and loved, since he was a small child. So when the priest decides to employ an outside company, B is devastated, and deeply hurt. However, nobody really appreciates the power of the village, and the people who want one of their own to renovate their church. So eventually he gets the job…
The interesting part of the story, to me, was B’s relationship with his extended family. I found him a likeable person, dedicated to his job, happy to be a bachelor with occasional women for company. I’m not sure how well the author got inside the male psyche, but that didn’t matter too much; B tells the story well, with a light touch, and I liked seeing his role as father-figure to his nephews, particularly the one named after him, and best friend to his emotional sister Toot.
I wondered where the story was going at first, but soon realised that there isn’t one; the novel is a work of art, painting a picture of family and church life in a small village, with people coming and going, with their different personalities and dreams and heartbreaks. I found it almost impossible to keep track of who was whom, and didn’t feel particularly attached to anyone, but then I know almost nothing about Italians living in the US. From that point of view, it was an interesting read.
The blurb on the back calls this book a ‘comic masterpiece’, so I tried to read it as a light-hearted book. The only parts that seemed amusing were Toot’s regular malapropisms, but as B keeps correcting her, they didn’t have the humour value that they might otherwise have done so. Most of the cast are caricatured, I assume - but maybe not. I was mildly amused, too, at some recipes with vast quantities of ingredients, listed as serving 48; I very much doubt if they are realistic.
The least appealing part of the book is the regular descriptions of people’s houses which B has decorated; he goes into great deal about colour schemes and designs, most of which went right over my head and didn’t interest me in the slightest.
B travels to various European cities in the course of the novel, including London, but none of them felt particularly real or relevant. It’s a minor irritation, but a Brit would not have used the word ‘momentarily’ in the American sense of ‘in a moment’. I doubt if even an American would have done so in 1970.
Still, it makes pleasant enough reading; no violence or horror, no bad language, and while there are a great many intimate liaisons, thankfully they take place off stage or without any detailed descriptions.
Review copyright 2015 Sue's Book Reviews
I first came across the name of the writer Adriana Trigiana when Amazon recommended some of her books, based on my previous choices and ratings. I read the blurbs, and thought that some of them sounded quite interesting... but not sufficiently so to add them to my wishlist. Then, browsing idly through a second-hand church bookstall, I noticed this, which was Amazon's most oft-repeated suggestion. For a euro, I thought it was well worth buying.
'Lucia, Lucia' begins with Kit is a playwright living in 21st century New York. She hasn't had much luck with her writing so far, and lives in an apartment in a rather dilapidated old building. She is on nodding acquaintance with other residents, but finds herself strangely drawn to an elderly lady known to everyone as Aunt Lu.
Kit - somewhat reluctantly, at first - accepts an invitation to tea with Aunt Lu one afternoon. It's the start of an amazing friendship. Lu - whose name is really Lucia - starts to talk about her life as a young Italian growing up in America in the 1950s. She worked in a dress design shop, and was engaged to an upstanding young man.. but realised that she didn't want to spend the rest of her life as a down-trodden wife. So she broke off her engagement...
The majority of the book is written in flashback form, told by Lucia, so entirely through her eyes. It took me several chapters to get into it, not helped by the fact that I kept expecting it to return to the present; this didn't in fact happen until almost the end. However, I soon realised that Lucia's story was a fascinating one in its own right, giving wonderful insights into the way a young woman in this situation would be torn between family loyalty and modern concepts of equality. She wanted to respect her parents, but she also wanted to follow her heart.
Lucia has several brothers, so is subject to the natural male dominance of the era, while longing to exert her independence. Unsurprisingly she falls in love along the way, and the story starts to become a bit tense when the reader is aware that all is not as it should be... even then, events are shocking at times.
There's tension, romance, lots of family ups and downs, and something of a bittersweet conclusion... which then leads the story back into contemporary times, and at last I understood why the book begins as it does with Kit meeting Lucia; it's Kit who can help to provide some answers to concerns that have stayed with Lucia over the decades.
By the end of the book I was enjoying this quite a bit, although it took me a long time to reach the stage of wanting to read more than a chapter at a time. That's not a bad thing when I'm reading late at night, but it means that it took me three weeks to complete an average length novel.
I think I'd recommend it, in a low-key kind of way. Intended for women but readable by anyone who likes a low-key character-driven plot. Published in 2003, and still in print as well as being widely available second-hand.
Review copyright Sue's Book Reviews, 21st October 2012
