A journalist’s carefully plotted story shines in its depiction of Italian culture.
A man’s return to his childhood home in Italy connects him to the controversial attempts to restore an old church.
The new novel from Costanzo (Graphic Times, 2008) first follows Carlo Strazzi, a teacher in the fictional mountain town of Roccamonti in the province of Calabria, Italy, where life centers on family ties and the crumbling church of Santa Prisca. Carlo’s brother, his brother’s wife and their son are leaving for America when old disputes come tumbling to the fore, involving the first and second restoration attempts of the church. Later, Stefano Strazzi returns to his home of Roccamonti to visit his uncle, Carlo, and becomes a benefactor of the third attempt to restore the church. Roccamonti and the slow pace of life along Via della Scala renews Stefano, and he finds he is prolonging his stay, much to the anger of his wife, who is waiting for him to join her. Stefano learns of the debate surrounding the previous restoration attempts and the anger Carlo feels toward the whole charade. As Stefano becomes reacquainted with the town of his childhood, he also becomes intertwined in the drama that continues his uncle’s bloodlust for revenge. Constanzo only reveals the intricacies of the plot at the very end of the novel, a tell-tale sign of the author’s affinity for mystery writing. The foundation of the story is laid out well, with a journalist’s attention to facts, but also working poetry and the Italian language into writing that is otherwise unemotional. While Costanzo grounds the story in the telling of Strazzi family history, the characters of the town of Roccamonti and the mystifying back story, the climax comes late with the resolution feeling rushed and confused. Despite the shaky ending, Costanzo’s second novel is bolstered by his intimate knowledge of life in an Italian village.
A journalist’s carefully plotted story shines in its depiction of Italian culture.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-936185313
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Charles River
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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