That Summer in Sicily: A Love Story (Hardcover)

by Marlena de Blasi (Author)
Key Phrases: peach skinned girl, yellow haired devil, mouth harp, That Summer, The Tiny Mafalda, Don Cosimo (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In her fourth Italian memoir (after The Lady in the Palazzo), American writer de Blasi utilizes her personal narrative as merely bookends for a larger story. In 1995, De Blasi and her Italian husband sought a place to stay in the Sicilian mountains and were directed to the Villa Donnafugata, a grand hunting lodge populated by widows, farmers and an imperious mistress: Tosca Brozzi. When she was nine, Tosca was traded, in exchange for a horse, to a feudal prince, who took her to live with his wife and their two daughters. On her 18th birthday, she became the puttanina (mistress) of the prince, Leo (then exactly twice her age), and they lived together in an accepted arrangement. After WWII, Leo set about modernizing his estates, asking Tosca, a bookworm, to educate their children. The modernization brought down the wrath of the Sicilian mafia, and one day Leo simply disappeared, leaving Tosca an heiress. Eventually she modified Leo's reformist plans, developing the extraordinary community that the author and her husband stumble upon. This book reads like a suspense novel complete with a surprise ending, and though Tosca's story is compelling, it's in De Blasi's telling of it that the true magic lies. (May)
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From Booklist
Strangers seldom wander into the mountainous wild at Sicily’s heart. The locals, having resisted repeated waves of invaders, maintain their own traditions in defiance of the outside world. So when de Blasi and her Venetian husband trek into Sicily’s core in search of background for a travel guide, they discover a world much removed from modern life. Persevering in what seems a fruitless search, they finally stumble upon the Villa Donnafugata, an old wreck of a castle presided over by an imperious woman called Tosca. The villa has become a refuge for widows from the region. It also houses a birthing clinic, vital to the mountains’ isolated women. The residents eat well and heartily, the leftovers distributed to the local town’s poor. De Blasi uncovers Tosca’s past, an extraordinary tale of passion and love stretching over decades of the twentieth century. Admirers of this author will relish her latest volume. --Mark Knoblauch

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (May 20, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345497651
• ISBN-13: 978-0345497659
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #38,089 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Something New from my Favorite Serial Memoirist, July 4, 2008

By	Story Circle Book Reviews (www.storycirclebookreviews.org) - See all my reviews

That Summer in Sicily is the fourth Marlena de Blasi book I have read. When I picked up the first one, A Thousand Days in Venice, I didn't take to it right away. I am a Texan who writes exactly the way I speak, and I am irritated by flowery prose. However, I am also a sensualist, in love with taste, aroma, color, texture and sound. These elements--these things that define a particular place--come alive for me in these books.

Unlike her previous three memoirs, this story is not really about American Marlena and her Venetian husband. It is an almost unbelievable love story, a story about what it means to be Sicilian. As with most other adventures in her life, this one began with a writing assignment. Marlena was asked by a scholarly magazine to write a seminal piece on the interior regions of Sicily. Several people had already turned the job down, and soon she discovered why. Despite a meticulously drawn route and prearranged interview appointments, she was met at every turn with "misanthropic silences, closed doors and epic heat." Eventually she gave up.

Marlena's husband had come along for the ride, and before wending their way down from the mountains, they decided to take a day or two to recover. Finally, a policeman responded to their numerous inquiries for a place to stay. "There is a woman called Tosca. Her place is Villa Donnafugata (house of fleeing woman), although there's no sign to tell you so."

When they entered the gates they found what looked like a castle with sweeping gardens. In fact, it was nothing more than a hunting lodge, once belonging to the last Anjou prince in Sicily. Everywhere, they passed groups of women in long black dresses, laughing and singing as they went about their daily chores. A beautiful woman dressed in jodphurs and boots approached them. "I'm Tosca Brozzi. We'll be sitting down at one. I'll let you know later if there's room for you to stay."

From one of the other women there, Marlena learned that Tosca had inherited the villa from the prince, whose ward she once was. Bit by bit, she had restored the place. For more than thirty years she had lived there with an assortment of villagers who had found themselves alone, and in need of other people. This sort of communal life helped them to stay well, to stay young. Babies were born there, some people died there. "We are all related by affection," they said. "We are part of one another's history. We are Sicilian." They grew and prepared their own food, cared for the animals and for each other. Though there was much work to be done, it seemed to be merely a diversion to fill the hours between meals. "We eat often and well here, signora," Marlena was told. It was a society she never would have believed could exist.

"We never decide to stay but simply get caught up in the imperishable rituals and rhythms of the villa," wrote Marlena. One day Don Cosimo, a seventy-six year old priest, approached Marlena. He told her that he'd been the household's resident cleric and the prince's chauffeur when, fifty-six years previously, the prince had taken Tosca to live with him in the palace, a few hours drive from the lodge. "She was, even then, of that splendid arrogance. Leo claimed her when, I think, she was nine. Her beauty was already fearsome," he recalled. It was a common enough feudal custom, this sanctioned purloining of the children of one's peasants. Most people believed that the prince had requested Tosca. However, it was Tosca's father who'd offered her to the prince, in exchange for a stallion he coveted. And so Tosca was schooled by a French governess with the prince's daughters, tamed, formed, refined.

Later, it was Tosca who approached Marlena. "I'd like to tell you a story, Chou," she said. "Oh, I don't mean right now, of course. But soon. It's a long story, you see... It might take a few days. A week... I want to try out my story on someone from another place. I want to tell it to you, leave it with you, I guess, knowing that you'll go away." And so it began, the unfolding of a saga that spanned decades. It is a story that explores the ravages of war, poverty, the origins of the Cosa Nostra, the responsibilities of wealth and privilege, the cost of defying rigid traditions, the meaning of love, and finding one's true place in the world. It is also a story of miracles.

by Becky Lane
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars another magic spell, May 31, 2008

By	michael saitta (Laguna Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I fell under Ms. de Blasi's spell with the trilogy (1000 Days In Venice, 1000 Days in Tuscany and The Lady In The Palazzo) and here is another book of delicate prose woven with insight and beauty. This type of writing probably isn't for everyone. One reviewer of a book she wrote was shocked that she could write about food without having step-by-step photos of preparations. How sad for that person that the whole purpose of her writing isn't about how to cook but how to enjoy cooking, how to enjoy the friends that will eat your food and how to enjoy life. This is a book by a writer who will transport you into another world - if you give her your time and hand.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good story, well-told, July 9, 2008

By	armchairinterviews.com (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This author can write! Her descriptions of people, environments, food and relationship are first class.

Unlike the first three books that were memoirs of her travels and life with her husband, A Thousand Days in Venice, A Thousand Days in Tuscany, and The Lady in the Palazzo, this book is really Tosca Brazzi's story as told to Marlena.

De Blasi descriptions of simple, everyday things are strong, such as: Unskilled, unshy hands pounded scales on the piano." I could hear the music and see that person working the keys.

What an interesting story de Blasi tells because of her chance meeting with a woman, now in her mid 60s, while traveling with her husband, Italian born Fernando. Tosca, the nine-year-old daughter of a peasant under the last prince in Sicily, was given to the prince by her father in trade for a stallion. She was educated along with the prince's young children and as she grew, became their teacher. A priest who knew her in the beginning described her as having "splendid arrogance."

At 18, Tosca became the mistress of Leo, the prince, now 36. When Leo disappeared mysteriously because his work for the people went against the local mafia, Tosco became an heiress. She carries on his work of modernizing some of culture. Sicily is like a major character in the book and we learn about many aspects of life there.

The story today is of Tosca's role in helping women who are alone--many who come to the beautiful Villa Donnafugata (house of fleeing women) to live, and maybe to die.

If you love good writing that is descriptive to the finest detail, read this book. In the first chapter she describes the ceiling of the dining room in the Villa: "Fragment of frescoed gods and goddesses--plump flanked and rolling eyes--hurtle across the high crumbling walls, giving chase up onto the great vault of the ceiling."

The author has been a journalist, restaurant critic, and cookbook author. She took a trip to Italy, and there experienced a whirlwind love affair with a man and with Venice, inspiring her to write _A Thousand Days in Venice.

Armchair Interviews says: Not a memoir of de Blasi's life, but of Tosca's, however this is a good read you'll enjoy.