Journey to the South: A Calabrian Homecoming (Paperback)

by Annie Hawes (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Ever since Annie got together with Ciccio, his Calabrian family have spoken of their homeland as an earthly paradise, of wild nights dancing the tarantella, of almond milk sold fresh from roadside stalls, of honey cakes and amaro made from wild liquorice roots...Now, at last, Annie and Ciccio are travelling down to see the ancestral home and extended family for themselves, along with a bunch of vocal and lively de Gilios who don't want to miss out on the fun. Will everything Annie has learnt in her years among the Ligurians stand her in good stead among the Calabresi? Or is she in for another steep learning curve in the intricacies of Italian rural life?

About the Author
Annie Hawes, originally from Shepherd's Bush, is based in Liguria. Her previous books, Extra Virgin and Ripe for the Picking, were worldwide bestsellers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (July 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014101752X
• ISBN-13: 978-0141017525
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #138,917 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Taste of Italy, April 28, 2006

By	Anton Nel (Pretoria, South Africa) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is Annie Hawes' third book on her life in rural Italy. Having read her first two books on the subject, I was rather sceptical about the third book, despite having enjoyed the first two books. Perhaps I thought that her relationship with Ciccio will affect the story about Italy and its occupants. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

Annie writes in humorous style about another part of Italy. Although largely about the family of Ciccio, they are clearly a perfect example of the Calabrian population and having travelled through the area while visiting these family members, she also provides a decent description of the towns and countryside. Even if you had only briefly visited an Italian town or even if you have only seen photographs in a travel magazine, it is easy to visualise the houses, streets and piazzas. Annie's description of the typical Italian food (such an important element of the culture) is mouth-watering. To such an extent that I have embarked on a home-project to fill dry figs with walnuts and to store them in brandy for a while....

One can easily read this book without having read the first two, but it will be beneficial to have the background from the first two and since they are both enjoyable, it will be no loss to the reader to start the trilogy with "Extra Virgin" through "Ripe for the Picking" and ending with "Journey to the South". I expect Annie to embark on further books in the series and I will definitely consider reading further titles, but this third one could be a nice conclusion as well. One would not like to see her undoing the good experience of the first three books with a failed follow-on title. But Annie is definitely a good writer, clearly enjoying her stay in Italy, and if J.K. Rowling can write 7 hits in a row, why not Annie Hawes!

I recommend the book to readers who enjoy travel books and also those who want to know more about Italy. Even at a rather lengthy 350 pages, it is an easy and enjoyable read.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Half a goat's head, May 23, 2007

By	Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

In the mid-1980s, the British sisters, Annie and Lucy Hawes, fled cold and rainy Shepherd's Bush to graft roses in the Italian Riviera region of Liguria, and ended up buying a dilapidated farmhouse with adjacent olive grove near the town of Diano San Pietro. This story of culture shock comprised Annie's first book, Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month Is Enchanted. Lucy subsequently left Annie to manage the farm on her own, and the latter's continuing coping exploits were shared in her second volume, Ripe for the Picking, in which she meets a man with romantic potential, Ciccio de Gilio. Now, in the third installment, JOURNEY TO THE SOUTH, Annie and Ciccio are each other's significant other. The book's title is inspired by a death in the de Gilio family, an event which compels Ciccio, his mother Francesca, his sister Marisa, and Marisa's son Alberto, to travel to the de Gilio ancestral home in Calabria, the toe of Italy's boot, to attend the funeral of Francesca's brother. Annie, of course, comes along to meet the extended family back in the "old country", and her introduction to yet another culture, Italian in name only, is the fodder for the story.

As an author, Annie Hawes is engaging largely due to her irrepressible and dry wit, as demonstrated in this excerpt from EXTRA VIRGIN:

"This horrible thing appeared to me as I was sitting under the lemon tree ... gazing focused and abstracted at the foliage below me moving gently in the sea breeze... One tall stalk that seemed oddly out of rhythm with the rest gradually drew my attention... Some sinister kind of long skinny snake was sitting among the tall grass, waving its top half around, cunningly camouflaged as a bit of plant life and hoping, I suppose, to catch some unwary plump insect... not just a concealed snake, but an actively duplicitous snake. We didn't need any of that sort of behavior so close to home... We set off a-sickling with renewed vim and mild hysteria, stamping about heavily to scare off serpent life as we went."

Unfortunately, in JOURNEY TO THE SOUTH, the narrative gets bogged down with the personalities, contemporary activities, and around-the-dinner-table discourse between Ciccio, Francesca, Marisa, a flock of Calabrian relatives, and various hangers-on, all of whom may be interesting characters, but not THAT interesting. The book suffers for it; too many times I caught myself counting the pages I had to go to reach the end. Events that should've been emphasized and the source of much humor, such as the refurbishment of an old farmhouse and orange grove inherited by Francesca, and the literal re-discovery of an overgrown hilltop lot, replete with ancient ruins, inherited by Ciccio, were reduced to a few cursory paragraphs. Much text is devoted to Calabrian cuisine, in which hot, red peppers seem to predominate. Oh, did I mention a local delicacy, a goat's head sliced in half vertically?

Surprisingly, Annie apparently had an eventful life before landing in Diano San Pietro. At 16, she ran away to marry an Irish/Jamaican boyfriend, a relationship that foundered almost immediately. She has a son, now in his late twenties, by a second man. "Lucy" is not her sister's real name. You get none of this from her trilogy. What does come across is that Hawes is a sweetheart. According to the Web, Annie is currently 54 and living happily with Ciccio in Liguria. They purchased a 25-room house further up the valley, and the experience of fixing the place up will perhaps afford material for another book. Despite the failings of JOURNEY TO THE SOUTH, I'll buy it.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding Calabria, September 19, 2005

By	Travel Diva (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

The stereotypes of Calabrians in Italy remains as the writer discovers that her friends (and fiance) from Liguria are originally from Calabria. The book details the writer's travels to Calabria with her fiance and his family. The warmth and traditions of the Calabrians (along with their quirks) is apparent. If you haven't yet visited the south of Italy, this book will encourage you to do so.