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Summary
Summary
In the time of Mussolini, jackbooted Black Shirts, and nationalist fervor, Caterina's best friend marries a high-ranking Fascist official just as Italy declares war against Britain, and in the impassioned years that follow, love and friendships are dramatically tested.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A spry English woman marries an Italian doctor on the eve of World War II and tries to come to terms with a dual national identity in this plodding historical novel, the American debut of British writer Riviere. Caterina, as she is called in Italy (she thinks of herself as Kate Caterina), lives with her husband, Gabriele D'Alessandria, in a crumbling Renaissance palace in Arezzo. Surrounded by extended family and occupied in raising her young daughter, she has begun to make a place for herself. Then, three days after Germany attacks Poland, Gabriele, an inveterate Socialist, is taken into custody as a political prisoner. For Gabriele's sake, Caterina must maintain good relations with her sister-in-law and one-time best friend, Esmeralda, who has just married a high-ranking Fascist officer: this involves socializing with the Fascist elite. Meantime, she must also worry about her brother, Giles, who is fighting on the side of the Allies. Closest to her is Gabriele's father, Luigi, a sad but wise old man, weary of partisanship and more at ease with leisurely chronicles of the war's events. Riviere's plot encompasses plenty of fascinating historical material, particularly Italy's internal divisions during the war, but his long-winded exposition, minimal dialogue and flat prose sink the story. Much care is put into the development of Caterina and Luigi's characters, but neither quite transcends stereotype, undermined by Riviere's tendency to tell rather than show. For a novel set in a war-torn country, Riviere's tale is strangely lacking in drama. Agent, Emma Parry, Carlisle & Co. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
British-born, Italian-resident Riviere's fifth novel, his American debut, offers an unconventional chronicle of a young Englishwoman's experiences during WWII. A disjointed and distancing narrative slips from third- to first-person stream-of-consciousness and then back again, offering less a standard story than a collection of haphazard snapshots of events. Though the ensuing course is often muddled, the initial premise is simple enough: Kate Fenn, a pretty Londoner living with her left-wing Italian husband Gabriele D'Alessandria in their Tuscan villa, survives the emotional trials of war. The story begins with the marriage, in 1940, of Kate's glamorous sister-in-law Esmeralda to a high-ranking fascist. Kate Caterina (the name is a union of her old English self with her new Italian life) has both a brother and a brother-in-law called up to fight, of course on opposing sides, and soon after Esmeralda's marriage Gabriele is arrested as a political dissident. Kate Caterina has no dilemma over divided national loyalties: she loves her family and wants them all home unharmed, and anyway she leaves all of that political mumbo-jumbo to the men. During the war years she attempts to win Gabriele's release by hobnobbing with officials in the Mussolini government (thanks to Esmeralda), guiltily admitting that she enjoys the luxury of evenings out. Kate Caterina's duplicity, Esmeralda's desperate hedonism, Gabriele's selfish integrity, and his father's cynicism-all combine to create a decided distaste for this unpleasant cast of people. Moreover, Riviere's narrative, which alternates between a dry recitation of events and the idiosyncratic ramblings of the character's minds, leaves the reader with a highly impressionistic view of the story, something akin to watching newsreels without the sound. At the close, one is left with a spectral sensation, though it's a bit of work to achieve such a flighty thing. A promising premise and narrative style fail to create a resounding work.
Booklist Review
The enchanting woman of the title is English, married to her Italian socialist husband, and the doting mother of a daughter. In the brilliant set piece that opens the novel, set in 1939 Arezzo, Kate's husband's family gathers for the wedding of his sister, Esmeralda, to a man with close ties to Mussolini. The point of view shifts from Kate to her father-in-law to her husband in prison, focusing on her brother Giles, her German mother-in-law, Sonya, or her little daughter, Lisa. The short chapters fill the senses: the beauty of Tuscan summers and the cold of mountain winters; the comfort of food and wine; the relentless wartime agony of not knowing where your loved ones are or how they fare. Kate keeps journals for her husband and brother, filling them headlong with her thoughts and terrors. That same stream-of-consciousness produces a radiance of detail and an intensity of heartfelt sorrow. Riviere has told a tale that would sit proudly next to Mark Helprin's Memoir from Antproof Case (1995). GraceAnne A. DeCandido
Library Journal Review
Riviere has written five novels, but this is the one that was chosen as Book of the Year by both the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Mail in London. The author's U.S. debut, it tells the story of a beautiful young Englishwoman, married to a left-wing Italian doctor, who finds herself increasingly alienated in Fascist Italy. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.