The fire of love. Not. (Letter to Lorenzo - Amanda Prantera)

Member Name: chris105

Product:	Letter to Lorenzo - Amanda Prantera
Date:	07/08/01 (47 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: atmospheric - if you're into seventies Italy, good writing, plausible plot

Disadvantages: plot in itself is not overly gripping, some (minor) bits seem contrived

"British or American, lived or still live in Italy and wrote or still write thrillers set in Italy[...] One could see them as a kind of 'school', only that they don't work together, maybe not even know each other." - Frau Malu, 2001

Such were the words uttered by our very own resident dooyoo scholar - and never were words truer. Disclaimer: Michael Dibdin remains the undisputed king of the category (for those of you who haven't read Malu's op on Donna Leon - go read it!); but there are a few others worthy of note. It's just a matter of separating the wheat from the chaff, as someone might say.

A trusted friend recently recommended Amanda Prantera's "Letter to Lorenzo" as being in this vein, and I, never one to refuse a good read if this is presented to me, bookmarked the title high on my "to-read" list. Actually its turn came while alleviating boredom waiting for some workmen to finish installing some new panels in my kitchen. I made myself semi-comfortable (you know how it is, you can't make yourself too comfortable while others are working lest it seem politically-incorrect), and tried to block out driller-shrieks while I settled down to this book.

The blurb promised intrigue and a voyage of self-discovery with a female protagonist, British-born Juliet, whose husband - Roman industrialist Lorenzo Gherardi - is blown up by a terrorist bomb while driving in his car. Due to his left-wing sympathies, suspicions make the rounds of the eternal city that Lorenzo himself, his personal wealth notwithstanding, was an aider and abetter of the terrorists. Juliet, or Giuletta as she is known in her adopted country, thinks otherwise and sets out to prove it to the police, to Lorenzo's family and friends, and to herself.

The way I saw it, the book could have turned out in either of two ways: (1) it could have developed into a mature, sassy thriller with psychological undertones
- you know the kind, detective work more or less in the background while the heroine ponders on the meaning of life after marriage; or (2) it could have frittered away into a self-conscious psycho-babbling session with an Italo-phile Miss Marple (only much younger and much prettier) picking up clues on the way. [Have I told you that my friends complain that I tend to generalise too much?!]

Luckily for me, the author seems to have chosen path (1), but only after a spot of dithering towards path (2). The first few pages, in fact, were threatening to disappoint me - we got the heart-broken widow who doesn't get on with her mother-in-law, the frosty "pubblico ministero" playing the cliched mustachioed Italian. It was only my trust in the judgement of the friend who recommended the book that made me persist. But then Prantera veers off into the better writing that characterises the rest of her book. While the thriller part of the story clearly wasn't meant to form the be-all-and-end-all of the novel, it isn't relegated to afterthought status. There's a meaty whodunit at the foundation of "Letter to Lorenzo".

However the author doesn't stop there, mercifully - purely as a vehicle for a story it would have been a decent but not memorable book. La Prantera gives flourish and texture to her novel by concentrating on the conflict inherent with being a cold-blooded (in the good sense) Brit in the passion-infused temperament of Mediterranean Italy. Nowhere is this brought out better than when, in the midst of the story, Juliet makes a short detour/respite to her home country and spends a few days with her father.

Juliet, a young and still extremely attractive woman, with a child in tow, has to come to terms with her bereavement, with her newly-imposed status as "widow", and what's more a widow in the traditionalist and patriarchal country that was Italy in the seventies.

Of course, before
I forget, I must hasten to add that the novel is set in Rome e dintorni of the seventies, when political terrorism was at its height and when Italy symbolised for all of us poor neighbours the road not to be taken lest we all turn "red". In a country ruled by a fractious centre-right coalition with the largest Communist party (in opposition, of course) west of the Iron Curtain, notorious terrorist unit the Brigate Rosse were busy planting explosives all over the country, while their neo-fascist counterparts were concocting their own brand of terror. Horrible days - just goes to show what tremendous progress Italy has made since those dark days.

But I digress.

The author shows a keen awareness of the realities of everyday Italian life, still worryingly close to the cliches of legend (even today in the 21st century), where "conoscenze" (ie. who you know) are the everyday currency at all levels of life. The higher you go, the higher the stakes. Juliet's analytic mind, with her belief in the British concepts of law and order (not to mention queueing!), find scant solace in Italy. The torrid climate, especially in the sweltering summer months, is perfectly depicted in the novel, not so much by the descriptions themselves as by the actions and state of being of the characters. Juliet, even in the midst of an investigation into the death by explosion of her husband, retreats to her countryside home for the summer months. It's all about priorities in life...

This brings me back to my opening statement, quoted from Malu, on the school of Brit/American Italophile authors. Where this book differs from Dibdin's work is that, while in the latter the British author creating an Italian character wallowing in Italianness in Italy, in this book Prantera places an English character, such as she herself is, in the midst of an Italian reality - thus bringing out the impossible and unbridgeable conflicts between the two cultures
. This in itself makes the book worthwhile reading, especially if you know both Brits and Italians, but also if you know only one kind of person.

A propos of nothing really, please don't even get me started on the front cover of this book. Had it not been for the strong personal recommendation, I'd never have touched this book. Rarely has a book been so ill-marketed, in my opinion. I don't disagree with "The Times", which reviewed the book thus:

"Prantera's writing is as well-finished as the jacket is stylish".

The jacket may well be stylish (in fact, admittedly it is), but the flames and warm reds and oranges and yellows and the seductive lady in purgative-advert pose send out a completely wrong message. One of the favourite phrases I learnt in dooyoo was MykReeve's "chick flick" (referring to a film intended primarily for women - but of course you know that!). Well, the cover to me screamed "chick read" (or whatever the literary equivalent would be). Making matters worse, a pull-quote actually on the FRONT cover (from the "Sunday Times", no less) proclaimed:

"An elegant novel... Part-thriller, part-romance."

Let me assure you, there's nothing "chick"-ie (ooh, I'm offending so many people here, I'm going to be called all shades of sexist and chauvinist here - but you know what I mean, come on admit it!) about this book, unless you're the sort who considers any book written by a woman and whose main protagonist is a woman to be a "chick read".

There is much more to this relatively short book that I cannot relate in this op. Doing so would be to render an injustice to the author's craft. I strongly recommend "Letter to Lorenzo" to anyone interested in a pseudo-thriller with strong characterisations and a genuine taste of a foreign country (Italy) as seen through the eyes of an adopted d
aughter (British Juliet/British author).

On the other hand, give this book a miss if your main concern is a gripping story with a hold-your-breath climax in its finale. The ending is good, but not overly so - nothing to gasp in surprise about. But all in all it gives a realistic assessment of the travails of a recently-widowed person who is out of her element, still young and attractive, and alone.

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