An Italian Wife

Josephine was born on September 24, 1874 in Conca Campania, Italy and she died exactly one hundred years later in Rhode Island. This story encompasses vignettes of her life and the lives of her large Italian family - children, grand children and great grand children. While I found it interesting to move through the decades with her, I grew weary of the minor tone. I longed too hear at least a few major chords of triumphant moments. Finally, using Josephine's word, I said "Basta!" (enough) I know life is brighter than this!

I read this entire book through waiting for a redemption that never came....maybe that was the point. The first character we meet is Josephine and while she is the center of the story we at least have some grounding but as the book bounces back and forth to her children and grandchildren it becomes a sad exploration of their sex lives without any real focus on the mental journeys that brought a character to this place. In more than one instance, the reader has no idea who a person is before the sexual activity starts.

I don't get it. I loved the Obituary Writer, Ann Hood was brilliant. Did the connecting parts of this book end up on an editor's floor? I can't say, but hopefully I can spare a prospective reader some sorrow....don't waste your efforts.

This was such a satisfying book to read. It begins at the turn of the 20th century in Italy with the arranged marriage of a young girl who then travels to America to start her new life with her husband.

Through the voice of different family members, each chapter takes you through the next 100 years of this family. Actually the individual chapters could stand alone as a short story, they are all written that well.

My only problem was the pre-occupation of sex with just about every person in this book. It seemed excessive, but that is my personal feeling. In spite of this, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel by Ann Hood.

The story of the ups and downs of one woman and her Italian-American family through the decades captures a time and place and the people who experienced it. Well done!

So. I finished this book several days ago, and I've spent time wondering what to write for a review. I've read many of Ann Hood's books and really enjoy her writing--except this time.

The novel begins with the arranged marriage of Josephine Rimaldi in Italy, at the turn of the century. She's miserable in her marriage--the best time she has is several days after she's married, her husband immigrates to the US and he doesn't send for her until ten years later. That ten years is the happiest in her marriage. She's miserable in the States and that misery seems to carry down through the generations.

The way these women, and one man--shell-shocked from WWI--cope with their unhappiness is through sex--other men, women, priests, self, etc. One of the daughters doesn't have this issue because she vanishes mid-way through the story because she becomes a nun.

At this point, I couldn't tell you any of the characters names, because they all seemed to blur after awhile. The characters are the same in they all go through the same cycle of misery--the generations repeat the pattern of unhappy lives, find escape in sex, unhappiness returns, rinse and repeat. This cycle of misery and escape overwhelms the book, sacrificing the characters along the way. I never really cared about any of them--my thoughts ran more to: another unhappy character--wait for it--and there it is...again...another graphic scene.

For me, this book was a disappointment. Ann Hood is well-worth reading, but this novel doesn't come up to the standards of her other works.

Content related to the main character, Josephine, barely holds together as her relationship to other characters as well as relationships among all characters in the novel often remain unclear. Too brief for all it attempts to do, the book ends up empty in term of developing the characters fully and, more importantly, advancing the theme. My greatest concern is that the author trivializes the immigrant experience, in this case that of Italian Americans, with shallow relationships, gratuitous sex, excessive focus on deviant behavior, and many catastrophic details that feel way too convenient in the end. How sad that focus shifts away from Josephine -- it's as though she really has no purpose in the novel. And proportionately, the lifestyles of other characters, Josephine's family, seem too excessively deviant to be believed. I just did not care for this one -- with its string of excessive stereotypic behaviors, it lacked depth and authenticity.

I think Ms. Hood is trying to ride on the "50 Shades" band wagon with this book. Basically the story is about an Italian immigrant woman and her family and their sex-capades. I really do not know what else she was trying to convey in this book. With a few italian words thrown in here and there and some references to the '60's and '70's I found this book boring and it was a struggle to finish. No character development and no real story telling. Save your time and money and skip this one.

I'm not going to describe AN ITALIAN WIFE as a story that spans generations in the lives of women intertwined by family and culture because then it would sound really boring and you wouldn't read it. And while it does span generations and all that book review hoohah, it's a really good readable beautifully written book.

I read Ann Hood's THE OBITUARY WRITER, and fell under the spell of the people whose lives she described. In AN ITALIAN WIFE, she works similar magic.

When the book begins, Josephine Rimaldi is 14 years old, running barefoot in the stream outside her little village, happy and carefree. But she is betrothed to Vicenzo, 11 years her senior, and from a family who owns pigs, and even a cow. So one fine day, instead of letting her run through the stream, Jospehine's mother wraps her up in a corset and stockings and a wedding dress that squeezes the air out of her lungs and announces she is getting married that afternoon. Lucky Josephine then gets a quick explanation of what she can expect; it's a lot like dogs in heat.

Josephine is thus married to Vicenzo, who has a face like a pig, and shortly thereafter follows him to America where she produces 7 pig-faced children for him, and one to a lovely stranger who claims to be her soul mate (and then vanishes). Vicenzo dies and Josephine keeps on keeping on.

The book consists not so much of a story arc as it does of little stories and vignettes, of Josephine, and her children, and their children, and their children. Each story tells us who that person is.

The book serves up slices of history, with insights into growing up Italian in the USA. There are close encounters with the priest, travelling across America by bus, post-WWII in London, coming back from Vietnam, trying to fit in with the blonde Stepford wife housewives, sibling rivalry...

With each character, Hood presents us with a human vignette, each different and unique, with humor and anger and humanity and struggles and pain and grief and joy, giving us a window into each of the lives of the family members.

It is a book that does not synopsize well, and it's not a page-turner. It's a book that gently leads you through lives and stories similar and different from your own and ones you have observed.

And it will make you ponder: if you had to tell one story from your life that summed up who you are, what would it be?

Doesn't stay with any character long enough to develop them or to get you attached - too much sex - book not as advertised - feels like the author had a story idea then added in a million sex scenes (some quite disturbing) to grab the "50 Shades" audience

I don't enjoy posting negative reviews. It pains me greatly. This novel is supposed to be the saga of an Italian-American family. There is even a family tree diagram which always worries me because if I have to keep looking up people's names and relationships, well, that's just too much work for this reader, AND this novel does not justify a family tree diagram of any sort. The author skips years and decades and big world events to leap forward in time.

She also writes an awful lot of explicit sex scenes that are meant to show us how these hot-blooded Italians are always feeling sinful about sex and masturbating. I like a juicy book when the sex is an integral part of the story, but here is it simply gratuitous and unnecessary. There is a central question the author poses that is never resolved. There are too many cliches, too many racist references toward Italians, too many characters, and not enough prose to get to know or care about them. A very sad failure on all levels.

Too much sex, not enough story.