Customer Reviews

Recent History: A Novel

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This is one of those novels that leaves a mark. While I must say that I was not aware of how much I liked this book until I was well into it (more than 1/2 through reading it), it all changed at that point. What seemed like skimming the surface of intensely emotional subjects, dove much deeper in the second half of this book, much like the character himself dealt with his confusion and terror relative to human intimacy. Luca lived much of his early years not allowing himself to fully experience intimacy and connection with others, instead, dwelling on his terror of what he might be....was he gay because he felt sexual stirrings over a boy.....was his voyeuristic behavior for a neighborhood girl driven by anything more than a desire to fit into this suburban paradise? All of this confusion is normal boyhood stuff.....but what if your dad walked out on your mom and went to live with another man in a rooming house? What do you make of this "normal boyood confusion" under these circumstances? How can it seem normal when your life is all of a sudden the antithesis of "normal"??? Luca's journey through all of this, and Mr. Giardina's telling of it, was an extraordinary read. I "felt" this book intensely.....and, while I know that sounds a bit histrionic, it is not overstated.

This is a troubling and quiet novel narrated by a kind and decent man who from childhood has lived tentatively and, sometimes, in real pain. As an adolescent he finds himself confused about his sexuality, and afraid - of girls, of boys, of a disappointed mom, a dad who has left - of feelings in general. He has a deeply complicated relationship to his father, a good man who has gone to live with a man. Giardina's narrator, Luca Carcera, reports calmly, carefully, and reasonably - from the eye of the storm. Despite an inner life that from childhood has been constrained by the keeping of a series of secrets, Luca's world brims with friends, relatives, and lovers.

Luca's considerable conflicts are of the yearning for love and connection, of desire versus the longing for acceptance and the safety of conventionality, and some real confusion regarding his sexuality, and - ultimately - of how to live. Countless other protagonists in similar straits have been encouraged by authors to drink like fish, wreck cars, abandon families and betray lovers. Giardina's narrator fights his battles quite differently, with a quietude and a respect for those who would love him. That is some of why this story is well worth reading.

Luca's urge to live honestly competes agonizingly with his desire to hide. There are moving and poignant descriptions of people and inner states. The suburban milieu of Luca's childhood is memorably rendered. There is no misogynism, and no homophobia. Transcendent (hetero)sexual love would seem to be Luca's goal, yet throughout this novel desire is muted, and during lovemaking with women, Luca's mind is often elsewhere.

There are several unintentionally disturbing aspects to this novel, among then a narrative that is sometimes too quiet; less than convincingly drawn Italian and (especially) Jewish ethnicity; the not-quite believable sexual transformation that the protagonist experiences, and the finale, which left me frankly worried. I am not sure if that is what Giardina intended. Still and all, well worth reading, because Luca Carcera is someone well worth knowing.

Anthony Giardina's finely nuanced and emotionally-charged novel "Recent History" is much more than a stirring account of a young man's coming to grips with his father's homosexuality. This evoctive and intellectually sophisticated work entices the reader to reflect on the nature of knowledge, the limiting and liberating aspects of sexuality, the perils of detachment and fear. Giardina treats his themes with subtlety, his characters with compassion and his narrative with integrity. "Recent History" compels its audience to identify not only with the people who populate its pages, but with the demanding questions its author demands we consider as we struggle with the protagonist's quest for self-discovery and authenticity.

Luca Carcera, twelve years old in 1962, confronts his father's homosexuality in with a combination of denial and confusion. A sensitive single child whose shattered sense of family stability induces the development of dispassionate observation, Luca's withdrawl from initmate relationships coincides with his wondering about the limits of knowledge. Indeed, one of the central ironies about the novel is its title; as an adult, Luca becomes a history teacher who repeatedly notes that history is little more than guesswork. Knowledge to Luca, therefore, is permeated with relativity. As a shaken youngster, Luca senses "there was a power to standing outside, to knowing things about people they didn't know you knew."

Knowledge, however, is false armor for Luca. Angry and frightened, Luca determines that "the way to get back" at his father "was to fall from perfection, to fall as far as I could." Convinced that if he were to engage in homosexual behavior, Luca would so anger and shock his father that the latter would recant his abandonment of family and return to a more normal life. Luca believes in "an order, even one that rendered us the losers;" he assumes the responsibiility of recreation of family life, even at the expense of his own sexuality, his own identity.

This confusion renders Luca's adult life a shambles. Are Luca's adolescent homosexual activities indicative of genuine homosexuality or comprehensive sexuality? Why do Luca's adult relationships bring fear, even terror, instead of fulfillment and joy? Can Luca ever establish his own sexual identity, apart from his father's and independently validated by his own emotional needs? As Luca thrashes about for answers, the reader agonizes with him.

Anthony Giardina provides no simplistic solutions or nicely-packaged bromides in this taut novel. Instead, a thorough exploration of male sexuality, its impact on one man's personality and its manifestations on the various families he inhabits during his adult life are the complex themes Giardina deftly explores. "Recent History" is a challenging, textured and compelling novel. It richly deserves the critical praise it has earned.

The writing is too close to the bone, too true and too subtle not to be autobiographical. It is also a literary masterpiece. Here is a scene in which the boy, still early primary school age, is listening from another room in the house to his parents finishing off an evening meal with a guest. The boy has detected the marriage breaking down, the emotional distance between his father and mother, his mother's desperation as she tries to belong to the husband she is losing, and his fathers' attention going preferentially to the guest, a colleague from work named Bob Painter. In the next chapter the father leaves his family to move in with Bob Painter, but we don't know that yet. The boy's silent desperation echoes his mother's. The atmosphere is conjured in a few sentences, which a lesser author might have needed pages to describe.

I listened to the sound of them on the patio, my mother's voice, now drunk, the loudest. I imagined my father using the word "guinea," and I wanted my mother to lift a gun and shoot Bob Painter. Or I could do it. I could take an ax and finish the job. But my mother made her loud noises and then her murmuring assenting ones, and the men's voices rode under hers. It was like they were going away from her secretly, under the cover of night, throwing their voices like ventriloquists, so that she could not know how far away from her they already were.

Get the book and judge for yourself.

...i have to admit that i was somewhat frustrated with the book's ending. From the very beginning i was expecting Giardina to take Luca's frustrations to a higher level instead of just conveniently blaming all his sexual confusion on his parents. I thought it was really wishful thinking on Giardina's part to have written an ending so perfect and convenient with the two children being punched out to complete the 'awww...' factor. It was such a let down, contradicting the book's earlier, realistic portrayal of human emotions and life in general - The restraining of ones thoughts, the desire to fit in , the inability to address our fears and that nothing turns out the way we want it to. Nevertheless, I was glued to every page, especially the childhood years and i really took a liking to Lou and Bob's relationship. i thought it was really sweet. Anyway, as much as the ending may have been disappointing, I would definitely recommend the book.

This book sounded like it would be really interested, but as I was reading it, I could only think how boring and uninteresting it was. It had its moments that made you think it could get better, but the overall story was just dull, in my opinion. I would not recommend this book to my friends to read.