In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu: A Novel [Paperback]

Tony Ardizzone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 7, 2000

In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu is a magical, warm, and wise novel about a close-knit family's immigration from Sicily to America in the early 1900s. Wanting more for their children and grandchildren than a lifetime of servitude in the fields of a tyrannical Sicilian landlord, Papa Santuzzu and his wife, Adriana, push their seven sons and daughters, one by one, to immigrate to La Merica, a land of promise and opportunity. Here is a rich and vibrant novel about the stories families tell each other, stories that make up a deeply personal and a common history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gathered around a metaphorical campfire, the members of the extended Girgenti clan take turns regaling us in this robust, beguiling novel about family and the immigrant experience in the first half of the 20th century. Ardizzone, the author of two previous novels (Heart of the Order, etc.) and a story collection (Taking It Home: Stories from the Neighborhood), doesn't cleave to conventional narrative hereAeach chapter is a distinct vignette, with occasional overlaps as the characters intersectAso he depends instead on exquisite language and anecdotal charm to propel the narrative. The cumulative effect is of a kind of Sicilian Canterbury Tales, rich with fable and folklore and religion even as it traces a familiar pattern of immigrants struggling to survive in a hostile new world. One by one Papa Santuzzu sends his seven children off to "La Merica," while he remains in Sicily with his dead wife and his hard patch of garden dirt. But the gesture, intended to save his family from a life of poverty, inevitably drives them apart; in America, the siblings scatter from coast to coast and reunite only when fate and an unexpected funeral pull them back together. The novel, then, becomes a eulogy for a lost culture. Ardizzone nods to traditional immigrant tales: scenes of Ellis Island, sweatshops and brutal discrimination at the hands of the upper class. But the book's lasting power derives less from its pointed, perfunctory snapshots than from Ardizzone's sharp metaphors: when the police shoot a striking worker, for instance, she makes "a bird's nest of her thin, white fingers" to cover her wound; for most readers, that bird's nest will linger longer than the unjust death. Agent, Kit Ward. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Ardizzone's third novel is not your typical immigrant story. When the seven children of Papa Santuzzu emigrate from rural Sicily to La Merica, they do so one or two or three at a time. This allows Ardizzone, better known for short stories (Larabi's Ox, LJ 9/15/96), to travel back and forth in time and geography, relating magical homeland stories as preludes to immigrant realism. In Sicily, dreams mix with visions, folktales overtake events, witches cast spells on landowners, dogs and wolves talk, and ewes give birth to 87,000 human children. In the end, Santuzzu's grandson returns to the "garden," where Santuzzu will live again, time bending back on itself through the family's history. Ardizzone's fascinating work is an intriguing addition to the smallish group of Italian immigrant novels. More literary than literal, the book reads as if told by ghosts around an open fire. Recommended for literary and Italian American collections.AHarold Augenbraum, Mercantile Lib. of New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Picador (July 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312263414
• ISBN-13: 978-0312263416
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #571,005 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tony Ardizzone was born and raised on the North Side of Chicago and is the author of seven books of fiction, most recently the novel "The Whale Chaser" (Academy Chicago Publishers). His recent work includes the anthology "The Habit of Art" (Indiana University Press) as well as the novel "In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu" (Picador USA/St. Martin's Press) and the story collection "Taking It Home: Stories from the Neighborhood" (University of Illinois Press). His writing has received the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Milkweed Editions National Fiction Prize, the Chicago Foundation for Literature Award for Fiction sponsored by the Friends of Literature, the Pushcart Prize, the Virginia Prize for Fiction, among other honors.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's Mama's Garden, too!, December 29, 1999

By 

Terry Baraldi (West Chester, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu (Hardcover)

It always amazes me when a male author can cross the gender line and write from a profoundly feminine point of view. Using the voices of husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, Tony Ardizzone teaches us the simple wisdom that underlies all the folktales and traditions heard since childhood at family feasts and gatherings. Now you will know why we pray to St Anthony when we lose something, or why we "make the horns"just so.

But what was most surprising and unexpected was Mr. Ardizzone's feminist take on the goings on in Heaven. Who doesn't know that Mama is the power behind the throne?

Because this book is written as a series of vignettes, it can be read straight through or chapter by chapter. Whichever route you take, you will return to it again and again. A keeper.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Whimsical writing, shared stories, January 9, 2001

By 

J. Raimo (Oak Park, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu: A Novel (Paperback)

This book satisfies that part of me that loves short stories, the part that loves novels, and the part that loves series--for it is all of those things wrapped in one. With it's intertwined, yet distinct stories told in the voice of each of Papa Santuzzu's family members, you learn all about this vibrant Sicilian family's trials and triumphs both in Sicily and "La Merica." I especially enjoyed the perspective that one family member would sometimes give to another's story. Some sections are stronger than others, but most surely hit their mark. The book is written in a fable-y style that reminded me a bit of some of Salman Rushdie's work (especially Haroun and the Sea of Stories), while the intertwined story structure reminded me of another wonderful book, A Place Where the Sea Remembers, by Sandra Benitez. Enjoy this book, and pass it on.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating read about three generations of Sicilian family, September 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu (Hardcover)

The novel is really a series of inter-related short stories about the Santuzzu family of Sicily. Beginning with Papa Santuzzu, the novel follows the immigration of each of his children to the United States. Each chapter is told by different members of the Santuzzu family as they survive harsh lives in Sicily through their journies to America and into lives in a new country. Each chapter reveals information about the family. Sometimes stories are repeated but they are told by a different family member, thus allowing varying viewpoints to be explored. The novel really begins to cook with the chapter "Cavadduzzo's of Cicero" and is at its richest in the chapter "Black Madonna." Ardizzone has a wonderful knack for probing the depths of emotional pain to reveal the beauty in lives spent in struggle. Readers who like this book should get Ardizzone's earlier work, "Larabi's Ox." It's an excellent read and gives an exquisite glimpse into the author's talent that is so evident in "In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu."