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Solitaria by Genni Gunn (Signature $19.95)
It is possible to have a good heart but be arrogant. It is possible to be ill with regret and longing. It is possible to hide oneself away from others, to take refuge in the past.
It is possible to view oneself as heroically self-sacrificing but be seen as selfish. It is possible to keep cherished secrets that fester into wounds.
A Canadian literature professor named David learns all these things-second-hand-as well as a good deal more about his own identity, when he accompanies his mother, a recently retired opera diva, back to southern Italy for a family reunion in Genni Gunn's novel Solitaria.
The body of David's mysterious uncle, Vito Santoro, has been unearthed on the grounds of a seaside villa near Rome. Forensic evidence shows Vito died in the early 1950s. An Italian crew for a reality TV show is delving into the mystery, as are Vito's siblings, from three continents.
The clan's formidable, four-foot-ten matriarch, Piera, refuses to explain why she has lied to them all for decades, pretending to have been receiving letters from the devilishly handsome Vito, written from Argentina.
Everyone in the town of Belisolano refers to Piera as La Solitaria. It falls to David, a bachelor, to serve as the reluctant confidante to his mother's fiercely reclusive oldest sister in whose mansion they are all staying. La Solitaria will only talk to David, and nobody knows why.
As the go-between for the truth, David is made privy to Piera's tale of woe, but his mother and the others are contemptuous of her tales. So what really happened to the charming but devious Vito who was incestuously fixated on Piera? Is it really true that Piera endured a sexless marriage with the town's richest man in order to obviate Vito's debts and spare the family shame?
David's beautiful Italian cousin, Oriana, a documentary filmmaker, decides to obtrusively record all the family feuding, which constitutes yet another version of reality. David is attracted to Oriana, an exciting alternative to his e-romance with an American professor he doesn't really love.
In Gunn's narrative, we switch channels back and forth between the tempestuous reunion in 2002 and the Santoro family's hardships from Mussolini's era onwards. In the latter, we are vividly introduced to southern Italy in a perpetual cycle of poverty, in Piera's words, "abandoned by Rome, by the rest of the country, backwards and rural, superstitious and alien.";
Is Piera destructive and cunning? Or is she a tragic figure, bereft of love?
"It is my nature to worry,"; she claims, "especially about my loved ones. All my life, I've looked over their shoulders like a guardian angel; have tried to simplify everything for them. Why have they all turned against me?";
But Gunn also writes, "In her own mind, Piera had supplanted her mother. In her own mind, Piera thought of her parents, brothers and sisters as her children, hers to lead and nudge towards happy lives. In her own mind, Piera erected a large apartment building, so that all her siblings could live near her and adore her for the rest of their lives.";
Gunn's depiction of David as the bewildered confidante and reluctant siphon for his aunt's tale of woe is perfectly drawn. He doubles as a cultural translator for the novel itself, unexpectedly immersed in passionate Italian intrigues as a polite, trustworthy, respectful and somewhat aloof Canadian.
Gunn succeeds in making us curious; and she succeeds in making us care about the characters. Solitaria is a deeply moving, intellectually stimulating, complex and fully realized novel.
Possibly Shakespeare got it wrong. For some, it is better to have never loved at all.
1-897109-43-1
[BCBW 2010]
It is possible to view oneself as heroically self-sacrificing but be seen as selfish. It is possible to keep cherished secrets that fester into wounds.
A Canadian literature professor named David learns all these things-second-hand-as well as a good deal more about his own identity, when he accompanies his mother, a recently retired opera diva, back to southern Italy for a family reunion in Genni Gunn's novel Solitaria.
The body of David's mysterious uncle, Vito Santoro, has been unearthed on the grounds of a seaside villa near Rome. Forensic evidence shows Vito died in the early 1950s. An Italian crew for a reality TV show is delving into the mystery, as are Vito's siblings, from three continents.
The clan's formidable, four-foot-ten matriarch, Piera, refuses to explain why she has lied to them all for decades, pretending to have been receiving letters from the devilishly handsome Vito, written from Argentina.
Everyone in the town of Belisolano refers to Piera as La Solitaria. It falls to David, a bachelor, to serve as the reluctant confidante to his mother's fiercely reclusive oldest sister in whose mansion they are all staying. La Solitaria will only talk to David, and nobody knows why.
As the go-between for the truth, David is made privy to Piera's tale of woe, but his mother and the others are contemptuous of her tales. So what really happened to the charming but devious Vito who was incestuously fixated on Piera? Is it really true that Piera endured a sexless marriage with the town's richest man in order to obviate Vito's debts and spare the family shame?
David's beautiful Italian cousin, Oriana, a documentary filmmaker, decides to obtrusively record all the family feuding, which constitutes yet another version of reality. David is attracted to Oriana, an exciting alternative to his e-romance with an American professor he doesn't really love.
In Gunn's narrative, we switch channels back and forth between the tempestuous reunion in 2002 and the Santoro family's hardships from Mussolini's era onwards. In the latter, we are vividly introduced to southern Italy in a perpetual cycle of poverty, in Piera's words, "abandoned by Rome, by the rest of the country, backwards and rural, superstitious and alien.";
Is Piera destructive and cunning? Or is she a tragic figure, bereft of love?
"It is my nature to worry,"; she claims, "especially about my loved ones. All my life, I've looked over their shoulders like a guardian angel; have tried to simplify everything for them. Why have they all turned against me?";
But Gunn also writes, "In her own mind, Piera had supplanted her mother. In her own mind, Piera thought of her parents, brothers and sisters as her children, hers to lead and nudge towards happy lives. In her own mind, Piera erected a large apartment building, so that all her siblings could live near her and adore her for the rest of their lives.";
Gunn's depiction of David as the bewildered confidante and reluctant siphon for his aunt's tale of woe is perfectly drawn. He doubles as a cultural translator for the novel itself, unexpectedly immersed in passionate Italian intrigues as a polite, trustworthy, respectful and somewhat aloof Canadian.
Gunn succeeds in making us curious; and she succeeds in making us care about the characters. Solitaria is a deeply moving, intellectually stimulating, complex and fully realized novel.
Possibly Shakespeare got it wrong. For some, it is better to have never loved at all.
1-897109-43-1
[BCBW 2010]
Submitted on November 10, 2010 in By David.
