Catch of the Day

Advice for Italian Boys - Anne Giardini

It is so easy to get lost in a story that is, above all, authentic. Advice for Italian Boys by Vancouver's Anne Giardini glows with authenticity - her characters ring true, even to someone without a drop of Italian blood in her body. The characters are the story: Nicolo, a young man battling through the travails of self-discovery; his nonna, who, even while trying to figure out her own place in this family, this country, this story, dispenses the proverbi that are the signposts on Nicolo's journey to becoming his own man. Every character in Nicolo's story, whether minor or major, is exquisitely and completely drawn.

Giardini is able to take the minutiae of the daily life of an Italian man, and make it relevant to the reader. His clients at the gym are so cleverly rendered that the reader knows exactly what type of people they are - we all know someone like the divorcee, Monica, who hires Nicolo to help her get back into shape so she can attend her ex-husband's second wedding. We may also have come in contact with someone like Patrick- frenetic, driven and hyperkinetic.

We even recognize the woman who is in line in front of Nicolo's brother Enzo at the bakery. How many times have we stood in that line, waiting to do something for that unappreciative someone and think to ourselves, "My life is passing me by? This is not what I want for me."

Nicolo is an introspective hero. He looks to others when he needs advice. When his clients ask for advice, he often passes on the aphorisms of his nonna, unwilling to offer any personal thoughts. When his friend announces he is getting married, there is a moment where Nicolo wishes he could ask if his friend thinks it is right, but he stays silent. It is a poignant moment, one where Nicolo wonders if perhaps punching his friend on the shoulder as a gesture of solidarity would be appropriate, but in the end, he does nothing but walk away.

Throughout the book, we see Nicolo gaining strength, though. Every so often, he breaks out a bit of advice and a few opinions. He meets Zoe, who steadfastly refuses to offer her opinion on anything, saying that choices are personal. Nicolo admires her for not judging others, and she corrects him, saying that she is undoubtedly judgmental, she just doesn't say anything.

In a way this is a book about a young man from an insular family that has always done the same things, the same way. Tradition is important. As Nicolo, and his brother Enzo, come more in contact with those around them, they see that their are opportunities for them that are so much more far-reaching than what has gone before.

P.S.The sub-story of Nonna and Paola, Nicolo's mother, is brilliant as well. It is not only the men who are shucking off the old world and changing. This subplot alone is worth the price of the book.

Catch of the Day

Deafening - by Frances Itani

Frances Itani's Deafening was recommended to me a few years ago by my short story instructor at the Fernie Writers' Conference.  It had been chosen the year before as one of the contenders in the Canada Reads competition (losing out to another great book, Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness). 

Deafening is the story of Grania, a girl struck deaf by a life-threatening bout of scarlet fever. In the first part of the book, we are taken on a journey inside her head as she struggles to make sense of this new silent world and her place in it. Not only does she have to cope with the changes in the way she communicates, but also in the way her family and the people in her small town treat her.  

The second part of the book takes place at the beginning of World War 1.  It recounts Grania's life as a young hospital worker. She meets a young doctor's assistant named Jim, and they marry.  They spend two weeks cocooned together, getting to know one another, before he is shipped off to England to become a stretcher bearer in the war. 

The second part of the book also interjects Jim's point of view as he experiences war.  He writes letters in his mind to Grania - letters he will never send - of the horrors he experiences on the front lines.  

While the narrative itself is poetic and lovely,  the true strength of this book is the amount of detail Itani imparts to the characters and the setting.  Every writing teacher says "Show, don't tell", and Itani accomplishes this with depth and compassion.  The reader truly feels the frustration and isolation Grania feels in her deafness, but also at times, her relief in that isolation.  The relationship between Grania and her sister, or Grania and her grandmother is depicted with so much realism it is nearly tangible.  The emptiness between Grania and her mother is weighted and fraught with regret.

Grania's relationship with Jim was for me, however, a little harder to plug into. Perhaps I was more intrigued with living Grania's deafness vicariously than with living her love life.  That said, the moments where she explained to Jim how she took the world in as a deaf woman, and the way he explained the way he did, as a hearing man, were touching and original.  The way he took what he learned from her into the noise and confusion of war was also beautifully thought-out and written.

I found myself rushing through the battle scenes, wanting to get back to Grania -  which upon further consideration, could be exactly what Itani wanted to impart-that urge to get back to someone I cared about, loved-as Jim wanted to.  I had to force myself to read those sections, which could also have been difficult because of the exquisitely painful detail of what Jim saw and felt.  It was so well-written and horrifying that I wanted to avoid it, to look away.

 

Deafening took Itani years to write due to the amount of time she put in researching deafness and WWI.  The book, with its well-drawn characters (some of the best I have not written of - I don't want to give anything away!) and poignant scenes (the scene of a deaf man, rejected by the armed forces due to his disability, being presented with a white feather was hard to stomach) is one of the best I have ever read.