THE ITALIAN LOVER
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Description:
The force beckoning her is a movie called The Italian Lover, based on a story Margot lived and made into a book some twenty-five years earlier. Now, at last, that book is on its way to film, and Margot sees a role in helping the producer understand her story. But of course no movie is true to the life it is based on, and Margot is drawn deep into a new set of dreams being assembled for the screen in the beautiful cafés and streets of Florence, where Margot and her new lover, Woody, are finding their way together, Margot is caught up in conflicts and dramas she could never have imagined. As she comes to know the producer, the director, the actress who will play her, and everyone else working to give her story new life, Margot confronts her ideas about the past, about love, about home, about everything. Romantic affairs, a marriage, and even a divorce are witnessed and blessed. By the end of Robert Hellenga’s exhilarating new novel, the film called The Italian Lover has taken on a life of its own. But this wise and vital book is about much more than a movie. It’s about love and death and memory and desire–the ways lives are launched, enjoyed, endured, and made meaningful. |
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The
Be Bop Club
Saturday night. End of September. Florence, Italy. Margot Harrington excused herself from a table at Il Fiasco in Via dei Servi, saying that if she had another grappa she’d be too tired to walk home, and that if she drank another espresso she’d never get to sleep. It had been a long week of endless meetings and she was tired of talking, almost sorry she’d brought up the subject of the film, which she wouldn’t have done except that everyone was sick of talking shop and the conversation had slowed to a trickle. Besides, she was excited about it, so why not talk about it? A film about her. It was exciting. She offered to pay for her share of the dinner, but Signor Alberti waved her away, inclining his head ever so slightly toward Mr. Bancroft, one of the sponsors of the conference, as if to say, let the Americans pay. Margot said her ciaos and her good-byes and stepped out into the street. She could take a bus (too complicated), or a cab (too expensive), or she could walk. It was a lovely fall evening, almost crisp, almost Midwestern. The sidewalk in front of the Be-Bop Club on the other side of via dei Servi was crowded with young people who were making so much noise that she almost didn’t recognize the song that was being piped out into the street: Come on, Baby don’t you
want to
go,
Come on, Baby don’t you want to go, Back to that livin’ large city, Sweet home, Chicago. It was a song her father had sung, and now, on this cool September evening, it overwhelmed her, as if someone had stuck a knife in her ribs. She’d lived in Italy for almost twenty-five years. She missed her parents, but they were dead, so she might as well miss them in Italy as in the States. She missed her sisters, too, but one lived in California and one in Florida, so she probably saw more of them living in Florence than if she’d been living at home. In Chicago, that is. And they thought nothing of sending a niece or nephew to spend a month or two or three with their Aunt Margot in Italy, Aunt Margot, who taught them things that they hadn’t been taught at home. So what? If they wanted to know why she wasn’t married, she told them. Why not? She liked living in a big apartment in Piazza Santa Croce and running her own book conservation studio on Lungarno Guicciardini, between the Chiesa Presbiteriana and the British Institute. Margot Harrington
Restaurazione dei libri antichi. And she didn’t want to live or work anywhere else, not London, not New York, not even Rome. |
| "Hellenga tells a fast
story and creates solid characters, but what is most memorable are the
apt references to the arts–Helena Bonham-Carter in "A Room With a
View," Audrey Hepburn in "Roman Holiday," "L'avventura," "The
Iliad."Art, literature, and film are alive for these characters, and
the many specific references to them provide substance to the
philosophical conundrums about life and art that the novel engages in
its larger story." —The Boston
Globe
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"These are good people,
and it is pleasurable to cheer for them as
they fumble, collect lovers and ponder the meaning of the film,
paintings, and books that surround them. Margot hopes the movie will
validate her life; the producer simply wanats a saleable romantic
comedy. And what Miranda eventually discovers, when she gripes about
the way the film adulterates the book, is that' no one shared her
indignation, and she soon forgot it herself. The risotto was so
good'" —The Plain Dealer |
"This is the
sequel to the tantalizing historical novel about a
bashful Midwesterner who moves to Italy, falls in love and loses her
inhibitions. "The Italian Lover" is nearly as much
fun to read as the first book,
"The Sixteen Pleasures." In both, Hellenga developes rich characters
and vividly portrays Italian life through the eyes of an American
expatriate… —AP |
| "This is a
book about a movie about a book, which is simply to say it's a sequel
to Hellenga's first novel, 'The Sixteen Pleasures.' In that tale,
Margot Harrington, a young book conservator from Chicago, set off in
late 1966 to help save the literary treasures of Florence from a flood.
Now she's 53, still in Italy and hoping that a movie ('The Italian
Lover') being made from her memoir ('The Sixteen Pleasures') will help
quell her rising suspicion that she doesn't really belong here.
Hellenga smoothly merges past and present while injecting Margot's
story with fresh talent. Miranda is the new Margot—she's both playing
Margot in the movie and following in her footsteps.Woody is Margot's
new lover, a fellow transplant from the Midwest. And rounding out the
company are the remaining crew and cast of the movie.This being Italy,
there are affairs, fiery outbursts and lots of rich food. This being
Hellenga, the story is just as rich." —The New York Times |
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