Cari amici,
I have neglected you, it’s true. For a solid month I was immersed in copyedits on my forthcoming novel, How Long a Shadow, and once I’d sent my edited file back to the publisher, I hit the road. After a few hectic days in Rome to attend a jure sanguinis–related hearing at the Corte Suprema di Cassazione (more on that later, probably in a few months) and do more book stuff, this time for a literary crime novel—location scouting and story development with my co-author—I hopped a train to Gaeta for some seaside wandering. And I’ve been pretty useless ever since.
To accommodate my largely stagnant brain, I’m going to keep this brief. I want to tell you about three novels that will make you race to book your next flight to Italy, all written by authors who are fantastic storytellers and, in two out of three cases, have Italian roots that are very much in evidence.
Sicily
How Fires End, written by a Sicilian American, Marco Rafalà, is set in both the U.S. and the small town of Melilli in southeastern Sicily. But don’t let the dual settings deter you—if you’re looking for a taste of Sicily, you’ll find it wherever Rafalà’s characters are, because they carry their language, traditions, food, prejudices, fears, and vendettas with them. This is a captivating and heartbreaking read about family, shame, and what happens when a father keeps the truth from his son. If you’re looking for an authentic Sicilian voice, Rafalà is it—his family is from Melilli and he lives there now.
Calabria
Juliet Grames’ Calabrian heritage colors her two novels, The Seven or Eight Lives of Stella Fortuna and The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia. Though I recommend both, it’s The Lost Boy I’m singling out here. It’s set in the Aspromonte region of Calabria, a remote, mountainous area that in the novel’s post–WWII era time frame was isolated by treacherous terrain and limited in services—neither of which stopped corruption from infecting the wealthy, powerful, and influential citizens of the novel’s tiny town. Part crime novel, part love story, part passionate tribute to a slice of Italy that’s unknown to many, including me—and boy, do I want to go there now!
Umbria (but really Lazio)
In Return to Valetto, Dominic Smith places his titular town in Umbria, though Lazio is where the town’s doppelgänger, Civita di Bagnoregio, sits, on a promontory of tufa reachable only by a chasm-spanning bridge. The sense of place in this book is so strong that I was transported back to that area, even though I haven’t been there in 20 years. Along with the pitch-perfect setting, the book delivers gorgeous sentence-level writing and a potent story about family, secrets (an essential ingredient in any story about Italian families), and the lasting effects of grief. Though the book’s finely drawn characters span generations, in some ways time has stopped in Valetto.
If these books make you ache to travel, then you might like to take a little virtual trip to Gaeta. Enjoy.
Tante belle cose, alla prossima—
Cheryl
P.S. My books!
How Long a Shadow can be preordered here and will be available for preorder elsewhere soon. You can buy The Wild Impossibility here or on the usual sites, or, better yet, order it from your local bookstore. Three more ways to support authors: ask your library to stock their books, recommend the books to your friends, and leave a few lines of praise on any bookish site. You’d be surprised how much a rating or review helps authors. Baci!
Thanks for these book recommendations. I happen to be visiting Gaeta for the first time in a few weeks, so your photos are getting me hyped!
Thanks for sharing these interesting books, I'm curious to know more now ✨ And how beautiful are your photos of Gaeta 🥰