That Summer in Sicily
by: Marlena de Blasi
Published by: Ballantine Books
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Reviewed by Barbara Broom
This author can write! Her descriptions of people, environments, food and relationship are first class.
Unlike the first three books that were memoirs of her travels and life with her husband, A Thousand Days in Venice, A Thousand Days in Tuscany, and The Lady in the Palazzo, this book is really Tosca Brazzi’s story as told to Marlena.
De Blasi descriptions of simple, everyday things are strong, such as: Unskilled, unshy hands pounded scales on the piano.” I could hear the music and see that person working the keys.
What an interesting story de Blasi tells because of her chance meeting with a woman, now in her mid 60s, while traveling with her husband, Italian born Fernando. Tosca, the nine-year-old daughter of a peasant under the last prince in Sicily, was given to the prince by her father in trade for a stallion. She was educated along with the prince’s young children and as she grew, became their teacher. A priest who knew her in the beginning described her as having “splendid arrogance.”
At 18, Tosca became the mistress of Leo, the prince, now 36. When Leo disappeared mysteriously because his work for the people went against the local mafia, Tosco became an heiress. She carries on his work of modernizing some of culture. Sicily is like a major character in the book and we learn about many aspects of life there.
The story today is of Tosca’s role in helping women who are alone—many who come to the beautiful Villa Donnafugata (house of fleeing women) to live, and maybe to die.
If you love good writing that is descriptive to the finest detail, read this book. In the first chapter she describes the ceiling of the dining room in the Villa: “Fragment of frescoed gods and goddesses—plump flanked and rolling eyes—hurtle across the high crumbling walls, giving chase up onto the great vault of the ceiling.”
The author has been a journalist, restaurant critic, and cookbook author. She took a trip to Italy, and there experienced a whirlwind love affair with a man and with Venice, inspiring her to write _A Thousand Days in Venice.
Armchair Interviews says: Not a memoir of de Blasi’s life, but of Tosca’s, however this is a good read you’ll enjoy.
From our armchair to yours...
