The Italian Lover [Hardcover]

Robert Hellenga (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 24, 2007

An exhilarating novel of romance, art, and food in Florence, featuring the beloved Margot Harrington, who graced Robert Hellenga's The Sixteen Pleasures. Margot Harrington's memoir about her discovery in Florence of a priceless masterwork of Renaissance erotica - and the misguided love affair it inspired - is now, 25 years later, being made into a movie. Margot, with the help of her lover, Woody, writes a script that she thinks will validate her life. Of course their script is not used, but never mind - happy endings are the best endings for movies, as Margot eventually comes to see. At the former convent in Florence where "The Sixteen Pleasures" - now called "The Italian Lover," - is being filmed, Margot enters into a drama she never imagined, where her ideas of home, love, art, and aging collide with the imperatives of commerce and the unknowability of other cultures and other people.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hellenga reprises protagonist Margot Harrington from The Sixteen Pleasures (1995) in his latest, a romantic comedy about the book-to-film adaptation of Margot's memoir. In the fall of 1990, book restorer and longtime American ex-pat Margot is 53, living in her adopted Florence and awaiting the arrival of a film producer who wants to adapt her 1975 memoir for film. At the same time, Margot meets and falls in love with Alan Woody Woodhull, an Illinois-bred guitarist who gigs at the Bebop Club and also teaches literature at the American Academy. Meanwhile, producer Esther Klein desperately wants to make the film The Italian Lover, her first solo production since her husband/production partner left her. The movie crew includes Michael Gardiner, the middling director dying of cancer, and Miranda Clark, the young actress desperate to capture the true Margot. Subplots abound and conflicts brew (Woody rescues an abused dog; Miranda has problems with a nude scene), but the characters never come fully to life. Elegant in its colorful use of Italian phrases, cuisine and sites, Hellenga's complex novel offers a vivid, often sophisticated view of modern Florence, but less so of its residents and visitors. (Sept.)
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Review

"Hellenga tells a fast story and creates solid characters...Art, literature, and film are alive for these characters." -- Barbara Fisher, The Boston Globe

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (September 24, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316117633
• ISBN-13: 978-0316117630
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.2 x 8.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,076,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Hellenga used to ask, "What is the meaning of life?" Now he asks, "What experiences make life meaningful?" He's settled for an adjective rather than a noun. High on his list: teaching a good class, finishing a novel, sex, getting married, having children, cooking dinner, playing the guitar. The usual. But perhaps the highest on his list is having his three daughters leave after Christmas-because it's so sad. It's nostalgia, he realizes that. It's what he tries to avoid when he writes about Christmas, as he does in all his books. But he understands that the only thing worse than having the girls leave would be having them stay.

According to Anais Nin "We write to taste life twice." But we also write to explore mysteries. Mystery is the reality; clarity-seeming clarity-is the illusion. Clarity means you've lost touch with the mystery, that you've succumbed to habit, which, in the words of Proust's Marcel, "conceals from us almost the whole universe." Mystery means that you're still awake.

Hellenga is the author of six novels: The Sixteen Pleasures," "The Fall of a Sparrow," "Blues Lessons," "Philosophy Made Simple," "The Italian Lover," and "Snakewoman of Little Egypt." "Snakewoman" was included in The Washington Post list of best books of 2010 and the Kirkus Reviews list of top 25 novels of 2010.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another great chapter in the life of Margot Harrington, December 27, 2007

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Italian Lover (Hardcover)

Cleverly written as a sequel, yet a fine stand-alone novel, THE ITALIAN LOVER covers the making of a movie about THE SIXTEEN PLEASURES, in which Robert Hellenga first introduced us to Margot Harrington. Back then, she was a young American woman who traveled to Florence after the devastating flood of 1966, eager to do anything she could to help save some of the world's irreplaceable treasures. In the midst of a crisis in the art world, faced with the almost certain loss of innumerable ancient masterpieces, Margot's skills were not only desperately needed but welcomed. While working to restore paintings and documents, she made a stunning discovery.

As THE ITALIAN LOVER opens, Margot has set up a studio overlooking the Arno River. More than two decades have passed since she first arrived in Florence. She is quite content with her work and her life in general. But a guy named Woody is about to change that.

Brought together by a restlessness neither of them knew they had --- and an incident with a dog --- Woody and Margot grow from acquaintances to friends to lovers. Woody has been homesick lately, and, while Margot certainly eases his longing for the States, he is feeling the tug of the small town he left long ago. For Margot, it is an especially thrilling time. Not only is she involved with a man she enjoys more than any she has met in years, a well-known producer, Esther Klein, has purchased the movie rights to Margot's book. Excited and more than a little bit flattered, Margot launches herself into the project wholeheartedly, as she does with every endeavor in her life. She and Woody work together to create a screenplay, envisioning a variety of stars in the leading roles and picturing the scenes as Margot lived them.

But authors envision things differently from producers and directors. Esther Klein has a vision very unlike Margot's. When the entire cast and crew come to Florence, a few sparks fly --- and naturally a few sparks are ignited between the players. It is not hard to imagine how, in such a romantic city in this very beautiful part of Italy, love could happen.

When the Easter break rolls around, they must give up their hotel rooms for guests with prior reservations. The time is well spent, traveling to the countryside, the wine towns, the hill towns and the big towns, exploring and reliving experiences from another time. Each of them takes the reader along for a short but delicious escape into Italy. They eat well, drink fine wine and generally have a grand old time.

Of course, there's plenty of friction too. Husbands and wives have different agendas. New lovers learn some secrets they didn't need to know. Besides Margot's frustration with the screenplay, Margot and Woody have difficult decisions. And Woody has a huge problem with the dog's legal owner. But that's another story altogether.

THE SIXTEEN PLEASURES was such a memorable read that it seemed impossible to follow it up with much success, but Robert Hellenga has managed to bring us another great chapter in the life of Margot Harrington. And now that the movie has come out --- at least in the book --- where will he go from here?

--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars STILL LOOKING FOR SIGNORE RIGHT, October 19, 2007

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Italian Lover (Hardcover)

Readers of The Sixteen Pleasures will be delighted with the return of Hellenga's intriguing cast of characters, particularly heroine Margot Harrington. A book conservationist, she first came to Italy following the great flood of 1966. And, to her great amazement she came upon a copy of a book of Renaissance erotic drawings. She also embarked upon a love affair with an Italian art conservator. This coupling, as the song goes was too hot not to cool down, and the affair ended badly but Margot survived, and now the story of her life to date will be filmed.

Producing the film is Esther Klein, once a top notch movie maker with her husband, Harry. Greener pastures beckoned Harry - not younger but greener and he dumped Esther for another woman. To add insult to injury it was a woman of Esther's age. Nonetheless, Esther is now working solo and determined to show Hollywood and the world that she could make a major film on her own. Nothing will stop her, she opines, absolutely nothing.

Margot has found a new love interest in the person of Woody, a professor from Illinois, who had come to Italy for the trial of terrorists who put a bomb in a busy train station killing many, including Woody's daughter. He's a bit at loose ends now, soon pairing with Margot to write the screenplay for her film biography.

Once the cast and crew arrives egos clash, careers as well as life hang in the balance, and lovers connect. All of this against one of the most beautiful, fascinating backdrops in the world - Florence, Italy. Hellenga treats us to vivid descriptions of gustatorial delights, art treasures, and scenic meanderings.

Highly recommended for Italophiles and arm chair travelers with one major caveat - more careful editing. Misspellings are very distracting.

- Gail Cooke

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Best read by those who have read "sixteen pleasures" and "fall of a sparrow", January 22, 2008

By 

T. Broesche (Houston, TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Italian Lover (Hardcover)

I have read each of Hellenga's previous four novels. I continue to do so (despite the slippage in each progressive work) because I appreciate his "romantic sensibility." As a male of about his age, however, I am skeptical that his female characters are "true." I have not researched the reviews of his works, but I suspect that his female characters have been criticized as male constructs. He writes of male-female relationships as males might wish them (myself included, that's why I continue to read him), but . . . does it comport with experience.

This book is worth reading, if you have read "Sixteen Pleasures" and "Fall of a Sparrow." If you have, the story line is far more engaging than I imagine it would be without the back story provided by those two novels. I don't know how I would have reacted to this book without this background. The author's going back to these earlier works can be viewed in (at least) two ways -- is it inventive and creative, or is it a consequence of creative exhaustion? Having read both, I am not sure.

My view is, however, that this is a less engaging read than either of its back stories. Read both first, then make up you own mind.