All This Talk of Love (37 page)

Acknowledgments

F
OR THEIR GENEROUS
and expert feedback on early drafts, I am forever grateful to Heidi Pitlor, Antonia Fusco, Bret Anthony Johnston, Kristin Duisberg, Ladette Randoph, Mary Evans, and Margot Livesey.

Th
ank you to my editor, Kathy Pories, for giving this manuscript a chance and then making it better with her invaluable time, attention, and insight. I feel lucky to be part of the dynamic Algonquin family.

My agent, Janet Silver, is supremely wise, dedicated, savvy, and more patient with me than I could ever have hoped for.

Th
e following people have helped me in crucial ways by offering their encouragement, space, advice, and/or companionship: Eve Bridburg, dear friend and mentor; Sonya Larson, Whitney Scharer, Michelle Toth, and everyone at Grub Street, my happy and inspiring home for over a decade; Jennifer Grotz, Michael Collier, and the pure joy that is Bread Loaf; C. Dale Young, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and the faculty and students of Warren Wilson; Steve Almond, Maud Casey, Stacey D’Erasmo, Scott Heim, Michael Lowenthal, Steve McCauley, Tom Mallon, Anita Shreve, and Sebastian Stuart; Steve Buckley, Adam Lavielle, and the Diesel Café; Jenna Blum for three months at Sweet 5; Wolfgang Wesener; Rachel Careau; Elisa Piccinelli (no relation?), who corrected my very bad Italian; Jonathan Jensen and the Latchis Hotel; and my brother, Emidio Castellani, who has shown extraordinary acceptance and love.

Speaking of love: Michael Borum has it all.

All
Th
is Talk of Love

A Note from the Author

Questions for Discussion

A Note from the Author

I
n December
1995,
my parents took
me back to Italy for
the last time.
Th
ey had
grown up in Sant’Elpid
io, a small village at
the top of one
of th
e highest mountains in t
he Valle Del Salto, and
it was the return to t
his village that I mos
t eagerly anticipated.
I’d visited Sant’Elpid
io and the major Itali
an cities as a child,
but my memories were
distant and dreamlik
e. I recalled kicking a
soccer ball between t
wo olive trees to score
an imaginary goal; st
icking my hand betwee
n the stone lips of t
he
bocca della verita,
the mouth of the truth
; and sitting at my
mother’s feet over lo
ng, rambunctious feasts,
begging her to transl
ate what my relatives
were saying.

In fact,
my most enduring memories o
f Italy consisted of
my mother’s face smiling
down at me as she s
moothed my hair and re
told the stories, jokes, a
nd legends that formed
the centerpiece of
every family gatheri
ng. A few of the stor
ies, she said, would
have to wait until I
was older; some of th
e jokes wouldn’t make muc
h sense in English; but
most of what my rela
tives discussed she fait
hfully and patiently r
ecounted to me there
at the table or later i
n the night, as I fel
l asleep. In that str
ange and beautiful world
, my mother was always
my guide, my voice.

We didn’t go to Italy
to sightsee. We went
so that my mother c
ould visit the family
she’d given up to ma
rry my father, who’d
emigrated to America aft
er World War II. We w
ent so that my paren
ts could introduce me
to the “real” world
—vivid, honest, and u
nspoiled—and so th
ey could escape the har
sh and colorless “new” worl
d. We went because my m
other missed her best frien
ds, her six brothers a
nd sisters, who were
still relatively youn
g and very much alive
.

In 1995, I was a shy
young man of twenty-th
ree. I was a student
of literature with
the dream of becoming a
writer, and I was a
lso anxiously closeted. C
ompared to my parents
’ lives and the ones led
in their ancestral v
illage, my future seem
ed unchartable, unpreceden
ted.
Th
e apparent si
mplicity of Sant
’Elpidio, little more t
han a cluster of stone
houses linked to other cl
usters by one narrow an
d bumpy road, bewitched
me. Wandering through th
e village with my par
ents at my side, I t
hought, All the answe
rs are here! If only
I observed it and my
mother’s family close
ly enough, I thought, I’
d understand more full
y her nagging sadness,
and my father’s pri
de, and, somehow, my
own inexpressible longi
ngs. By seeing where
we came from, I’d fin
d out who we were.

Ni
ght after night, we f
easted. On Christmas Eve
, we ate the traditio
nal seven fishes at Zi
o Ernesto’s and playe
d cards and
tombola
lat
e into the night; for
Christmas Day we hea
ded down the street t
o visit Zio Totò, the
greatest of the joke-te
llers; we stopped into Z
ia Clara’s for her f
amous
pizza sfogliata
,
rivaled only by Zia
Carolina’s
crespelle;
in the middle of the
day we found ourselves
dancing across Zia M
addalena’s concrete bas
ement floor; and on S
aint Stephen’s Day we
gathered at the home of
Zio Nello, the oldes
t and the keeper of t
he family history. W
e were never alone. At
meals, on car rides
, on walks up and down
the village street,
my aunts and uncles s
urrounded us.
Th
ey seemed
to have one hand on
my mother at all time
s, on her shoulder o
r her lap or the smal
l of her back, as if
to keep her from leavin
g them again.

Th
is month
of feasts did show m
e who we were, both
as a family and as a
people: we loved each ot
her with abandon. Of
all the ways of expressi
ng love that Italians h
ave in their reperto
ire, the feast, with
food and stories at its
center, is among the m
ost powerful. Knowing
this, seeing it up cl
ose, made me less afr
aid of the future. No
matter what, I thought,
I was rich in love a
nd would never be poor.

Within a year of that
trip to Sant’Elpidio,
Zia Maddalena and Zi
a Clara both passed away
, and my mother vowed
never to go back to Ita
ly. She couldn’t bear
the country without t
hem, she told me, and s
o she turned her back on i
t completely.
All
Th
is
Talk of Love
is about
a woman much like her
, someone who was born i
nto the riches of fam
ily and then renounces
it. I named her Madda
lena and gave her two
lives: the one she l
eft behind in the villa
ge and the one she bui
lt with her husband a
nd children in the U
nited
States. What wou
ld happen, I wondered,
if the two lives collided?

Questions for Discussion

1. I
n what ways
does Tony’s absence continue to affect each character’s perspective and the way the characters see their role and future?

2. One reviewer called the Grasso family codependent. We generally think that codependency occurs when one person is addicted, physically or psychologically, while the other person is psychologically dependent on the first. Does this sound like any of the Grassos to you? If so, how?

3. Maddalena, Antonio, and Prima each give their own definitions of love as it relates to their hearts, minds, and souls (see pages
156
,
167
,
255
,
256
,
324
). How do these definitions reflect on them? Maddalena tells Frankie (page
255
), “When we romance, we do it with our hearts, but we love our husbands and wives with our brains; our children and our parents we love with our souls. You have to keep them all separate . . . or you get in trouble, mixing one kind of love up with another.” What does she mean?

4. Why do you think Prima is so obsessed with Allison Grey? What in Prima’s past might affect her reaction to Allison?

5. What keeps Frankie with Rhonda for most of the novel? Do you think he’s better off with Kelly Anne? Why do you think Frankie ultimately chooses to settle down with her?

6. How does Prima’s accident change her?

7. At the end of Frankie and Ryan’s party, Maddalena says, “
Th
at’s all we get? One little song?” (page
292
). How might this be a theme for the entire novel?

8. What do you think the epigraph refers to? Do you think it applies more to one character or to all the characters equally?

9. What does Italy represent to each of the characters, and how does that change by the end of the novel?

10. What about this particular immigrant family is similar to other immigrant families you’ve read about? What is different?

WOWE

Christopher Castellani is the author of two previous novels:
A Kiss from Maddalena,
which won the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction, and
Th
e Saint of Lost
Th
ings.
He lives in Boston, where he is the artistic director of Grub Street.

Other Algonquin Readers Round Table Novels

A Reliable Wife,
a novel by Robert Goolrick

Rural Wisconsin, 1907. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt stands alone on a train platform anxiously awaiting the arrival of the woman who answered his newspaper ad for “a reliable wife.”
Th
e woman who arrives is not the one he expects in this
New York Times
#1 bestseller about love and madness, longing and murder.

“[A] chillingly engrossing plot . . . Good to the riveting end.” —
USA Today

“Deliciously wicked and tense . . . Intoxicating.” —
Th
e Washington Post

”A rousing historical potboiler.” —
Th
e Boston Globe

AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES
•
FICTION
•
ISBN
978-1-56512-977-1

West of Here,
a novel by Jonathan Evison

Spanning more than a hundred years—from the ragged mudflats of a belching and bawdy Western frontier in the 1890s to the rusting remains of a strip-mall cornucopia in 2006—
West of Here
chronicles the life of one small town. It’s a saga of destiny and greed, adventure and passion, hope and hilarity, that turns America’s history into myth and myth into a nation’s shared experience.

“[A] booming, bighearted epic.” —
Vanity Fair

“[A] voracious story . . . Brisk, often comic, always deeply sympathetic.” —
Th
e Washington Post

AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES
•
FICTION
•
ISBN
978-1-61620-082-4

Th
e Puzzle King,
a novel by Betsy Carter

Th
is is the story of unlikely heroes, the lively, beautiful Flora and her husband, the brooding, studious Simon, two immigrants who were each sent to America by their families to find better lives.
Th
ey found each other and built a life—and a fortune—together. Now they are the last chance for their loved ones’ escape from Hitler’s Germany.

“
Th
e kernel of Betsy Carter’s third novel is a powerful bit of family lore . . . A work of genealogical fiction from the late 19th century to the eve of World War II . . . It balances the Jewish immigrant experience in New York—both the achievement of the American dream and the curdling of it—against the insidious anti-Semitism of Germany and Eastern Europe.”
—Los Angeles Times 

“A fine novel with twists and turns and pieces that interlock tightly . . . Carter at her best.”
—
T
he Miami Herald

AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES
•
FICTION
•
ISBN
978-1-61620-016-9

Until the Next Time,
a novel by Kevin Fox

For Sean Corrigan the past is simply what happened yesterday, until his twenty-first birthday, when he’s given a journal left him by his father’s brother, Michael—a man he had not known existed.
Th
e journal, kept after his uncle fled from New York City to Ireland to escape prosecution for a murder he did not commit, draws Sean into a hunt for the truth about Michael’s fate.
Until the Next Time
is a remarkable story about time and memory and the way ancient myths affect everything—from what we believe to whom we love.

“A mysterious, sweeping family saga reminiscent of the work of Meira Chand and Julie Drew, Fox’s novel is a suspenseful tale of lost love, rediscovered family, and the importance of history.” —
Booklist

“A taut suspense novel, a history lesson on a people’s enduring struggle, and a chronicle of a star-crossed pair’s everlasting love.” —Sandra Brown,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Lethal

AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES
•
FICTION
•
ISBN
978-1-56512-993-1

A Friend of the Family,
a novel by Lauren Grodstein

Pete Dizinoff has a thriving medical practice in suburban New Jersey, a devoted wife, a network of close friends, an impressive house, and a son, Alec, now nineteen, on whom he’s pinned all his hopes. But Pete never counted on Laura, his best friend’s daughter, setting her sights on his only son. Lauren Grodstein’s riveting novel charts a father’s fall from grace as he struggles to save his family, his reputation, and himself.

“Suspense worthy of Hitchcock . . . [Grodstein] is a terrific storyteller.” —
Th
e New York Times Book Review

“A gripping portrayal of a suburban family in free-fall.” —
Minneapolis Star Tribune

AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES
•
FICTION
•
ISBN
978-1-61620-017-6

Pictures of You,
a novel by Caroline Leavitt

Two women running away from their marriages collide on a foggy highway.
Th
e survivor of the fatal accident is left to pick up the pieces not only of her own life but of the lives of the devastated husband and fragile son that the other woman left behind. As these three lives intersect, the book asks, How well do we really know those we love and how do we open our hearts to forgive the unforgivable?

“An expert storyteller . . . Leavitt teases suspense out of the greatest mystery of all—the workings of the human heart.” —
Booklist

“Magically written, heartbreakingly honest . . . Caroline Leavitt is one of those fabulous, incisive writers you read and then ask yourself, Where has she been all my life?” —Jodi Picoult

AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES
•
FICTION
•
ISBN
978-1-56512-631-2

In the Time of the Butterflies,
a novel by Julia Alvarez

In this extraordinary novel, the voices of Las Mariposas (
Th
e Butterflies), Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and Dedé, speak across the decades to tell their stories about life in the Dominican Republic under General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo’s dictatorship.
Th
rough the art and magic of Julia Alvarez’s imagination, the martyred butterflies live again in this novel of valor, love, and the human cost of political oppression.

A National Endowment for the Arts Big Read selection

“A gorgeous and sensitive novel . . . A compelling story of courage, patriotism, and familial devotion.” —
People

“A magnificent treasure for all cultures and all time.” —
St. Petersburg Times

AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES
•
FICTION
•
ISBN
978-1-56512-976-4

Water for Elephants,
a novel by Sara Gruen

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski is tossed by fate onto a rickety train, home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Amid a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits, Jacob becomes involved with Marlena, the beautiful young equestrian star; her husband, a charismatic but twisted animal trainer; and Rosie, an untrainable elephant who is the great gray hope for this third-rate show. Now in his nineties, Jacob at long last reveals the story of their unlikely yet powerful bonds, ones that nearly shatter them all.

“[An] arresting new novel . . .With a showman’s expert timing, [Gruen] saves a terrific revelation for the final pages, transforming a glimpse of Americana into an enchanting escapist fairy tale.” —
Th
e New York Times Book Review

AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES
•
FICTION
•
ISBN
978-1-56512-560-5

Mudbound,
a novel by Hillary Jordan

Mudbound
is the saga of the McAllan family, who struggle to survive on a remote ramshackle farm, and the Jacksons, their black sharecroppers. When two men return from World War II to work the land, the unlikely friendship between these brothers-in-arms—one white, one black—arouses the passions of their neighbors. In this award-winning portrait of two families caught up in the blind hatred of a small Southern town, prejudice takes many forms, both subtle and ruthless.

Winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction

“
Th
is is storytelling at the height of its powers . . . Hillary Jordan writes with the force of a Delta storm.” —Barbara Kingsolver

AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES
•
FICTION
•
ISBN
978-1-56512-677-0

Coal Black Horse,
a novel by Robert Olmstead

When Robey Childs’s mother has a premonition about her husband fighting in the Civil War, she sends her only son to find him and bring him home. At fourteen, Robey thinks he’s off on a great adventure. But it takes the gift of a powerful and noble coal black horse to show him how to undertake the most important journey in his life.

“A remarkable creation.” —
Chicago Tribune

“Exciting . . . A grueling adventure.” —
Th
e New York Times Book Review

AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES
•
FICTION
•
ISBN
978-1-56512-601-5