Botticelli Blue Skies: An American in Florence [Hardcover]

Merrill Joan Gerber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2002

When writer Merrill Joan Gerber is invited to join her husband, a history professor, as he takes a class of American college students to study in Florence, Italy, she feels terrified at the idea of leaving her comforts, her friends, and her aged mother in California. Her husband tries to assure her that her fear of Italy—and her lack of knowledge of the Italian language—will be offset by the discoveries of travel. "I can’t tell you exactly what will happen, but something will. And it will all be new and interesting." Botticelli Blue Skies is the tale of a woman who readily admits to fear of travel, a fear that many experience but are embarrassed to admit. When finally she plunges into the new adventure, she describes her experiences in Florence with wit, humor, and energy.
Instead of sticking to the conventional tourist path, Gerber follows her instincts. She makes discoveries without tour guides droning in her ear and reclaims the travel experience as her own, taking time to shop in a thrift shop, eat in a Chinese restaurant that serves "Dragon chips," make friends with her landlady who turns out to be a Countess, and visit the class of a professor at the university. She discovers a Florence that is not all museums and wine. With newfound patience and growing confidence, Gerber makes her way around Florence, Venice, and  Rome. She visits famous places and discovers obscure ones—in the end embracing all that is Italian. Botticelli Blue Skies (accompanied by the author’s own photographs) is an honest, lyrical, touching account of the sometimes exhausting, often threatening, but always enriching physical and emotional challenge that is travel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

There's a subgroup in the memoir category in which Americans open themselves to the thrills and minor discomforts of unfamiliar countries, and sometimes pen insightful riffs on what it means to travel. Gerber, a creative writing professor at the California Institute of Technology, here adds her experiences to this genre, but doesn't find new ground on which to tread. She does stand out in one way: she's a reluctant traveler, following her professor husband, who's taken on an assignment in Florence. After a long discussion of how she hates to leave her home's comforts, Gerber finally arrives in Italy. She details her activities, including eating at a Chinese restaurant, buying milk in boxes and getting her geographic bearings. Although one can imagine how difficult this must be and therefore gain some sympathy for her at every wrong turn and misjudged grocery purchase, Gerber's "poor me" attitude wears thin. She doesn't learn any Italian before the trip, and in fact barely prepares herself for the journey. Prosaic happenings, such as a student accused of taking a hotel towel, are common and lead to other, similar moments that, when added together, seem like a neighbor's long vacation slide show. Gerber's lightness does lend itself well to funnier moments, and her memoir will comfort those who find themselves having to live in Europe briefly. However, the lack of emotional depth and unwillingness to fully examine a foreign locale prevent the book from rising in the expatriate canon. Photos.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Gerber (creative writing, California Inst. of Technology), an author of seven novels and four volumes of short stories, was not pleased when her husband was invited to teach in Florence, Italy, for three months. She feared leaving behind her family, friends, and home. Filled with humor and honest emotion, this lively tale describes Gerber's initial reluctance to move to a country whose language she did not speak, her eventual acceptance of her fear of travel, and her varied adventures in Florence, which ranged from losing her underwear over the balcony to the surprises of her first grocery shopping trip. Gerber, no traditional traveler, does not shy away from describing her exhaustion during sightseeing trips and her boredom with tour guides. She often seeks out the familiar, purchasing American peanut butter and celebrating the Jewish New Year with an Italian family. The American students studying with her husband also add color to the narrative, with convoluted romantic involvements and relationship angst. An absorbing account of life in another country; recommended for larger public libraries.
Alison Hopkins, Brantford P.L., Ont.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press; 1 edition (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0299180204
• ISBN-13: 978-0299180201
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,582,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Staring Down the Tuscan Sun, July 29, 2004

By 

takingadayoff "takingadayoff" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Botticelli Blue Skies: An American in Florence (Hardcover)

As some of the other reviewers mentioned, there's a lot of complaining at the beginning of this book. This almost put me off, but I was intrigued (perversely, I guess) by someone who did not consider a chance to spend a semester in Florence to be something to jump at. What was the matter with this woman?

When her husband tells her the university they both teach at is sending him to Florence for a semester to conduct a class, she just doesn't want to go. By being a reluctant traveler, Gerber is able to show how Florence managed to captivate her in spite of herself. Rather than going to Italy as an already-intoxicated tourist, she resists at first, but it is Florence, after all, and even she comes to love it. I found this an excellent antidote to the gushing let's-move-to-Italy (or France) travelogs.

And she isn't just taken with the usual Florentine charms of museums, churches, wine, and food. She discovers the thrift shops and grocery stores that most tourists would miss entirely. As a temporary resident, she has to deal with the landlady and the staff at the local Chinese restaurant.

I almost gave up on this one, but am very glad I kept going, and suspect that is what Gerber intended all along.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Whining American, April 13, 2003

By 

"annefrederick" (Monterey, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Botticelli Blue Skies: An American in Florence (Hardcover)

I'm sorry. I tried, but by the 7th chapter, I got so tired of the whining that I quit. Not only does she need to get out of her comfortable little life more often, but she needs to be more appreciative of the opportunities given to her.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Keep looking...., May 14, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Botticelli Blue Skies: An American in Florence (Hardcover)

A pretty pedestrian memoir by a woman who seems like she would be a very annoying travel companion. She's tired, she's hungry, she's unhappy, she's stressed. There must be better books about traveling to Florence than this.