L'America Hardcover – April 3, 2006

This novel grabbed me right away. I'm not typically a sucker for romances -- I don't watch cheesy Julia Roberts movies, no Harlequin novels, nothing of that sort. But, I must say, this one was very touching. I think it is because the writing is so well done, the characters so beautifully developed, that the love story just became an added bonus. I also treasured the exotic locales McPhee takes the reader to -- from Spain to Greece to Italy to southern France; it made me want to jump on the next plane and experience these places for myself. I knew when I first picked up this book that there would be some connection to 9/11, and I was a bit concerned on how that would be dealt with. I needn't have worried. McPhee handles this delicate event with the sensitivity of a native New Yorker. It was subtle, but always lurking below the surface. I think it is the subtleties of this novel that make it so remarkable. The story is told in such a unique way, not linear at all. In fact, it almost "swirled," returning again and again to scenes as it slowly moved forward and back through time. I highly recommend this novel for just about anyone.

McPhee's writing absolutely swept me away. She masterfully weaves the non-linear narrative in beautiful diction. A masterpiece.

The only thing I knew about L'America before reading it was the underpinning of September 11th, which is handled so delicately and held at such a distance that it simply (yet powerfully) serves to remind us of the fraility of life, the illusive nature of fate, and the extraordinary depth of lives lived by "ordinary" people. "By you," you can almost hear McPhee whispering into your ear. And even if you haven't been to Italy, made love in a public park beneath a towering Pine tree, or gave up love for the sake of independence (or vice versa), by the end of this book you'll remember your own coming-of-age with just as much intensity as Cesare's and Beth's (the book's main characters). In fact, the author's talents as a writer surpass her exquisite scene and character development (both of which are superb) in her ability to expose the universal experience of intimacy (love, loss, life, death) while writing with such artful precision that this centuries' old tale about a love affair wrought with the naivete and willfulness of youth feels like a first...just as it does when lived through in life. I also enjoyed the moments of recollection that came with the wisdom and resignation of age allowing the author, literally, to catch the reader reading personal experiences into the pages. At just the right moments McPhee subtly encourages you to stop and reflect, recognize even, the life-defining choices that make us who we are...or, as L'America often eludes, understand who we've been along. Universal, yet intimate, and ultimately, brilliant!!

Spoilers Ahead!

Martha McPhee's L'America is so much more than an epic and immortal love story between a naive American girl and a sensual Italian boy. The novel is also a strangely beautiful deference to art, food, intimacy and the ineffable transatlantic bond between the old world and the new, where the age-old traditionalism of Italy meets the noisy modernism of America.

When Beth and Cesare meet one untroubled summer on the small Greek Island of Paros "floating in the Aegean like a song", little do they know their affair will last for almost two decades, transcending their families and their respective cultures. The attraction is instant, the love between them a formidable force, "the draw, the pull, the urgency behind the love - the desire to conquer the impossible."

Beth is only 18 years old, when she takes off to Europe with her best friend Silvia. Their trip brings them to Greece where the blond and blue-eyed Beth meets the dark and swarthy Cesare on some steps leading up to a whitewashed pensione. His eyes lock onto her for an instant only, but long enough for her to feel a shock, a job, and a stab "and then nothing was the same."

Cesare Cellini is from Citts, a small rich town nestled into the foothills of the Alps, famous for it's industry of socks and shoes. His moneyed family is resolutely embedded in the old-world, with five and twenty generations behind them. For Cesare, Beth represents a refreshing change - almost like "a prism, always reflecting new light."

Cesare's other Italian girlfriends have always known their path, but Beth is so different, so young, and modern and carefree; they speak about everything and anything, each one comfortable, eager to unfold to the exclusion of all others. From the beginning, however, there's a real sense that this couple will have to fight to stay together, it's as though their time cannot last.

Claire, Beth's mother died in a car crash in Turkey when Beth was three, and her unconventional father raised her on a Pennsylvanian hippie commune. As a little girl, she was sent to New York to live with her status conscious grandmother, "a self-confessed opera buff and patron of the Met." Yet Beth constantly fights to free herself from the strictures of her youth, and it comes as no surprise that when she falls in love Italy, the whole experience makes her eager, anxious and giddy.

Beth will never be accepted into Cesare's self-important and conservative family. She tries to get him to come to America - and for one year he actually does - but his life back in Italy has already been decided for him and he cannot humiliate his family. This is from a man who grew up dreaming of the big roads of America "of which Simon and Garfunkel sang - a place where people did what they chose and anyone could become anything."

McPhee exquisitely moves her characters backwards and forwards in time - from the early 1970's to 2017 - the climax coming at the beginning of the novel, when Beth ultimately loses her life in the World Trade Center on 9/11. It's a shocking revelation, because for most of their lives, Cesare and Beth have been reinforced by a shared adversity, forever joined in mutual respect.

Together, Cesare and Beth are buoyed by abundance and risk, experimentation and discovery, yet they seem to be incapable of transcending the strictures of their respective countries and actually forging out a life together. She falls sweetly, deeply and permanently for him, whilst he loves her for her lack of sophistication and style, "she is the Stature of Liberty, he's the Roman Empire."

As with all tragic love stories, stubbornness and selfishness eventually derails the relationship. She wants him to give America a try, to construct his own life, separate from the life being handed to him by his family, whilst he cannot escape the guilt and laziness of having his life decided for him. It doesn't help that Cesare begins to see America as filthy, a place filled with "smokestacks and fuel tanks," the air thick with smells, "and of strip towns with drive thu-just-about-anything, seedy hotels and lonely phone booths on long lonely roads."

In the long run, Beth returns to America and becomes an entrepreneur, fired up by her ambitious nature, the beauty of exotic food and her innate talent for cooking. Cesare becomes a rich and prominent citizen of Citts and he lends money, just as his father did and his father's father did. Both of them eventually drift into other marriages and relationships, their connection to each other tempered by occasion and by experience.

L'America is a compelling story of love and its victory over time and how love can unpredictably steal from death. The novel is also is a heart-wrenching portrait of a young couple's private passions, obsessions and immense appetite for life - Beth and Cesare's tragic love does indeed transcend time and place, and is ultimately immortalized forever.

When Cesare finally learns of Beth's death via an email, he must finally grapple with his feelings and admit, once and for all, that she really was his one great and true love. Mike Leonard May 06.

I love romances and the cover is more intriguing than the story. The readers have to work through all the mire of information about the characters' lives which didn't interest me enough to finish the book. There are very few books that I have left unfinished but I am sorry to say I just couldn't go on.

A facinating look at the lives of two lovers through the years, their stories gradually revealed in their and other various characters' voices interwoven throughout the novel. Beth and Cesare, from two very different worlds - literally, meet and fall desperately in love on a Greek island, then continue their romance both in Cesare's Italy and Beth's America. Tradition, ambition & cultural expectations keep them apart yet they continue to remain emotionally attached.

A wonderfully intriguing tale of passion and the two very different cultures that shape these lovers and ultimately make their love impossible.

There's telling a story and then there's wresting every bit of nuance and meaning from every single sentence. Unfortunately, in my opinion, McPhee falls into the later category of novelists.

Prose is so overworked that reading becomes a duty, not a pleasure!