Customer Reviews

The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales (Banner Books)

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After watching the Tony Award show this year I was curious about Elizabeth Spencer, a Southern writer whom I had not heard of before the show. I have just finished reading her novella "Light in the Piazza" (haven't seen the touted play yet)and it was a memorable read. It starts out like a fairy tale---you don't quite know why Mrs. Johnson and her daughter are in Florence, what time period they are in, their background---and you're quickly engaged in a charming romance story. But there's also an undercurrent of tragedy. You discover lies, family strains, an accident in the past. Every character in the story becomes suspect. You start to question every character's motives, possible deceptions (with the exception of Clara, who becomes a symbol of clarity and innocence, as in the Virgin Mary). For the last 30 pages of the story I am nervously living inside Margaret Johnnon's head, worrying about the future of her "simple-minded" daughter Clara.

Elizabeth Spencer is a masterful storyteller, making me ponder what level of control we have in life, how easily we make assumptions about people soley based on appearance, how we can manipulate others and fool ourselves. Her prose is deceptively simple at times. I found myself reading and re-reading many a sentence to decipher the multiple levels of meaning. I closed the book wistfully, wishing for a sequel!

After spending six months in Florene, Italy, I saw the movie Light in the Piazza on a late night television movie channel. I fell in love with the movie as it gave me great memories of Italy. I have never been able to find the movie on video as it has not been released. So instead I read the book. The story is a true romance between a naive mentally-challenged woman and an Italian man. Very quick, easy reading. A must for anyone going to or having been in Italy.

The author, born in Mississippi, brings a Southern sensibility to these stories. She has written a series of short stories about Southern women living and visiting in Italy in the 1950's. Ms. Spencer writes beautifully, and her stories are never overly sentimental or superficial. They ring true. Italian words are sprinkled throughout the text which adds to the overall effect.
I found the stories a little "dated" though. These women are trapped here in an era of proper white gloves, cocktail parties and long cigarette holders. The 1950's was a rather repressive time for women, and in many of these stories we find women struggling to be in control of their own lives. They have come to Italy to vacation "abroad"; to fulfill a lifelong dream; to work, or to distance themselves from the past.

By far, the best of the stories is "The Light in the Piazza" which has a warmth and appeal that I found missing in most of the others.

With a healthy anticipation of seeing the New York theatre production of "The Light in the Piazza" I decided to orient myself with Elizabeth Spencer's story of the same name. After finishing this tale, I went on to read the others.

"The Light in the Piazza" is perhaps the most defined of the collection and one gets an instant taste of Ms. Spencer's writing and the kinds of characters she prefers. Women are central in all of them, no less Margaret Johnson in "Light". The author's women command attention as they maneuver the action around them. Manipulation is an even better word. All of these collected stories begin somewhere in mid-sentence and finish not much farther along. Enigmatic, troubled, wistful and "vagabondish", Ms. Spencer's men and women prefer the waft of an Italian breeze to any set action or direction. The vignettes are more or less satisfying, if only for the time that one spends with them. "Knights and Dragons", the longest of the stories, is an aimless sojourn but the final one, "the Cousins", is second only as a success to the title tale.

Elizabeth Spencer has put together a nice group of stories. Even though her writing is mostly even and descriptive, some of her offerings end up being less so, though her depictions of Italy are true to form. Still, the bookend chapters are worth the read.

Light in the Piazza appeals to your sense of hope and optimism. It is a beautiful story that involves a mildly mentally impaired young woman and her mother, who travel to Florence in the 1950's. The young woman falls in love, which forces the mother to make a difficult decision about her daughter's future. It's a great story that pulls at your heart strings no matter how many times you read it. This compelling story is tender and sensitive without being overly sentimental. The story has also been the basis for a very successful 1962 film and a hit Broadway play. I highly recommend it.

Jennifer K. Lafferty
Author of Offbeat Love Stories and More

I purchased this book because the Broadway production of the title story had proved so enchanting. Don't be mistaken, though. The play bears little resemblance to the story. The story tries so hard to be symbolic and airy that the characters become cardboard symbols and I did not find myself caring much for any of them. The story may have proved more engaging had I not been expecting beauty and life to match what I had seen onstage, but as it was, I couldn't bring myself to read the rest of the stories.

I have not yet read the book, but I too love the movie, although I keep missing the beginning. I just wanted to reassure the person posting the question that the book definitely precedes the film, and that yes they are the same story. You can doublecheck me by just looking at the books on zstores and auctions-- same author, same title, and one has a banner that says "now a Hollywood film!" The book was published in 1960, the movie came out in 1962.

Apparently highly regarded as a writer, Elizabeth Spencer's "The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales" left me cold. The title story, recently made into a Tony Award winning musical is the tale of an American woman and her daughter vacationing in Italy. There, daughter Clara meets and falls in love with local Florentine, Fabrizio. However, what the besotted Fabrizio doesn't know is that the beautiful Clara is mentally challenged, having suffered a childhood injury to the head. Should mom reveal her daughter's handicap to Fabrizio and his family? This is the question around which the novella revolves. I won't reveal the ending. However, what could have been a poignant tale of maternal love and responsibility becomes a comedy of manners examining the national differences between Americans and Italians. To me the portrayals of both groups were stereotypical. This story was the best of the lot. The others were boring beyond words. In fact I did something I rarely do. I put the book down three quarters of the way through. A waste of reading time. I plan on avoiding the musical.

Unfortunately, you don't give a synopsis of Light in the Piazza and I want to know was it made into a movie -or was the title borrowed from the movie with Olivia de Havilland, Rossano Brassi, George Hamilton and Yvette Mimieux? Since I can't find a video of the movie I would like to read the book as I loved the movie.