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LUCIA, LUCIA, audio
by Adriana Trigiani
Randonm House Audio, July 2003
Abridged audio pages
$29.95
ISBN: 0739303643


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

In New York Cityıs Greenwich Village, not yet successful playwright, Kit Zanetti takes an interest in an older lady in her building. Aunt Lu is in her 70s and always wears a full length mink coat whenever she ventures outside. One day, out of nowhere, Aunt Lu invites Kit up to her fifth floor apartment for tea. Having nothing better to do and motivated by a certain curiosity in the eccentric woman, Kit accepts, and there Aunt Lu tells Kit about her life.

Lucia Sartori, as she was called at the age of twenty-six, in 1951, was the youngest and only daughter of Greenwich Villageıs most successful Italian grocery store owner. Lucia was from a traditional Italian family of five children and was doted upon by her papa. Lucia tells us that she was thought to be the most beautiful girl in Greenwich Village. Also a very talented seamstress, Lucia proudly held a position in the department store B. Altmanıs, where she helped make the clothing of the rich and famous.

Life seemed good as Lucia was engaged to a neighborhood boy, Dante, who had been in love with her since he first saw her in church when they were children. But as the wedding drew nearer, Lucia realized that the traditional life as a wife and mother wasnıt what she wanted and, to the horror of her family, she broke off the engagement.

Thus began Luciaıs story dealing with the most important year of her life, her twenty-sixth year. She soon meets another man, the handsome John Talbot, whose bon vivant and cosmopolitan lifestyle appeals to Lucia much more than the traditional life that she had known with her family.

When Lucia finds out that her life has been cursed by an aunt, "The Caterina Curse," to never find happiness with a man, she dismisses it, but the words of the curse linger in her mind. Can it be true?

This story is a very old fashioned one, very like some of the ³girl enters the big wide world² novels of the 1950s. Here the protagonist, a young woman in a pre-liberated world, rebels against the confining middle-class values of her American-Italian family and dreams of a life of success and fulfillment as a career woman, while still finding the man of her dreams. In the end she ultimately finds that life isnıt all that easy.

Adriana Trigiani's book LUCIA, LUCIA is a bit of a throwback to earlier books of this genre. Itıs fast reading and easy flowing, but it lacks much of the spice and bite that that one would hope that a woman of this century might bring to it. The New York City and Greenwich Village, Adriana Trigiani writes about is strangely reminiscent of a small town, and not at all the hub of the fashion world or the giant of a city that it truly was in the 1950s. In fact all of the outside influences that might have played a part in the makeup of the characters of this novel are missing, no mention is made of the years in which Lucia had grown up in, neither the Great Depression nor the Second World War makes an appearance in this novel. The place and the people are strangely cocooned from the real world, with 7th Ave. and the garment district oddly absent in the story.

Nothing exceptional happens in this story of a woman and her life. By then end the most that can be said for it was that it was fast and easy to understand. This abridged five compact disk edition, runs for six hours. It is narrated by Mira Sorvino, who of course, manages to convey the voice of a young woman of Italian descent perfectly. Sorvinoıs Lucia has a strong confident makeup and the other characters come through with no difficulty.

LUCIA, LUCIA is competently written, a story that tries to manipulate your emotions and mildly succeeds. Itıs easy listening, you donıt need to concentrate on it, and you can finish going through the compact disks in a day or two.

Reviewed by Sharon Katz, August 2003

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