THE CITY AND THE HOUSE

by Natalia Ginzburg ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 28, 1987

Italian novelist Ginzburg offers here a brief, deft epistolary novel (like her earlier No Way, 1974). The city is modern Rome; the house is a country villa that is the hub of a small circle of friends. Through an exchange of letters tracking the inexorable changes in lives, the author weaves an intimate tapestry of loyalty and affection. At the center is Lucrezia, mistress of the rambling villa, Le Margherite. The mother of five, with an open marriage to faithful husband Piero, Lucrezia offers her house as a weekend retreat for a shifting assortment of friends from Rome. She writes barbed letters to ex-lover Guiseppe, an ambivalent, 50-ish ex-newspaperman, when he writes that he is moving to America to live with his brother. Guiseppe also writes to his estranged son, Alberico, a homosexual drifting aimlessly on money inherited from a rich aunt. Other correspondents include Egisto, a journalist; Serena, a would-be actress; and Roberta Guiseppe's robust and meddlesome cousin. After Guiseppe moves to America, the letters send trival news with disasters peppered in. Lucrezia ends her marriage for a man who doesn't love her; her illicit child dies at birth, and she is abandoned in a dark apartment in Rome. Guiseppe's brother dies, and Guiseppe marries his widow: then she dies of leukemia. Alberico, who has settled down to be a successful filmmaker, is killed senselessly in an alley in Rome. Nothing in Ginzburg's sophisticated tale is allowed to resolve completely. But through the sketchy lines of her characters, she etches a picture of the bonds that are cast between us, bonds that prove surprisingly tough for seeming so fragile, and so randomly cast. A writer of understated mastery who deserves an American following.

Pub Date: May 28, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION