Lisl Reviews: Forty Years in a Day

Forty Years in a Day

By Mona Rodriguez and Dianne Vigorito

Please see below for giveaway information of two copies of this fantastic novel

History is a fascinating mirror and perhaps none is more so than the people who lived through it. Adding to the layers of intrigue are oral traditions passed down within families that lend new angles of perception and understanding to previous events, not least of them being the awareness that these are one’s own people.

Manhattan Island's Hell's Kitchen c. 1890,
shortly before our story begins
Photographed by Jacob Riis

I’ve been fortunate recently to have made the acquaintance of several books written about authors’ relatives and ancestors, amongst them Forty Years in a Day, a family story told to one woman by her immigrant father on his 90^th birthday. Having journeyed to Ellis Island, scene of so many immigrant beginnings on our shores, the pair pass through the interior of a building that “exploded with thousands of personal stories of hardship and hope.” Clare sees her father’s face in those lining the walls, these images reflecting the “disquietude of an era.”

She understands already that the comfortable life she lives now is in debt to those who came before, including her father, Vincenzo. His childhood journey from an Italian village to New York's Hell's Kitchen was marked with a near-death experience and instances of degradation his mother, Victoria, tried to pass off as ordinary in the hope he would forget. Whether Vincenzo recalls those earliest instances or retrieves them from his mother's diary is not articulated, but Rodriguez and Vigorito lay out an understanding for Clare to absorb that is much larger than any of it, suggesting that even had Vincenzo remembered, he is beyond it. As father and daughter sit outside the island’s museum, silently taking in the beauty of the crisp autumn afternoon, Clare remarks on the beauty of the day.

“My father simply replied, ‘Clare, every day you’re alive is a beautiful day.’

Throughout his life, the phrase ‘it’s a beautiful day’ had become his mantra. I had always thought of it as cordial chitchat used to fill the uncomfortable gaps of silence in conversations, but only now did I comprehend the depth of his penetrating words.”

As they sit on the bench, Vincenzo Montenaro tells his daughter Clare the story of his life and his family, more precisely that of his mother, forced to leave an abusive husband and board a ship alone with several small children. The language is straightforward and accessible, but never simple, and the authors clearly work well together, possessing a talent for relating details that elapse over a long and arduous period of time, without overburdening the reader. We get a clear sense of how awful is the journey and its inherent pains, terrors, humiliations, discomforts, even cruelties.

This, in fact, is the style of the entire novel—many years encapsulated in much the same way the elder Montenaro would have done when taking only a single afternoon to describe forty years of his life. It is part of the authors’ craft that one never really knows for sure whether each individual segment is shortened by necessity or because suggestion is more powerful than a full-on witnessed account. Indeed, certain details are too wrenching to lay openly on the table, so to speak, and in fact would not do them justice. Some things, as is oft repeated, are best left to the imagination.

Vincenzo takes Clare—and us—through his mother’s story, her journey with the children to America and the years in which her life is essentially on hold because she mistakenly believes the husband she fled lives on. As time moves forward, Victoria, and her family as well as society, experiences growth and the awkward, inspirational and even ordinary moments informing and directing decisions pertaining to children, careers, dating, friendships, recreational activities, marriage and children, crises, illness and death, war, struggle, failures and triumph, and looking towards the future while remembering dreams of the past.

Mission House in Hell's Kitchen
c. 1915

Somehow the myth pertaining to this era’s more “innocent” time has managed to stay afloat in our own society,  though Rodriguez and Vigorito attempt no such fluff. Life at this time was difficult, even nightmarish for some, though there were opportunities as well. New York City in the first half of the 20^th century was no playground: Irish mafia wars rivaled disease and poverty and though many emerged intact, very few escaped at least some contact with both.

But, like life in any era, there existed also the beauty of the ordinary, perhaps what Vincenzo, even in childhood, reveled in the most as he passionately embraced his appreciation for life:

Victoria knew the smell of the fresh baked bread and sauce simmering on the stove were ones the children looked forward to six days to Sunday. The minute she and [sister-in-law] Genevieve left the kitchen to ready themselves for church, Vincenzo would rip a loaf of the warm bread into pieces, dunk them into the sauce, and dole them out to his cousins and siblings. By the time Victoria returned, washcloth in hand, one of the loaves would have inconspicuously disappeared. Smiling to herself, she would casually wipe away the residue of red that rimmed their lips, pretending she was unaware of their weekly ritual.

Perhaps one of the novel’s greatest strengths is the manner in which it balances understanding of one realism within history: from the beginning human beings have always loved to be told stories, and it is no accident that our own histories resonate so deeply within us. The series of stories told throughout the book, as Vincenzo and his siblings—and the enlarging cast of characters—journey though teen years and young adulthood, as they enter into middle age, these stories satisfy a need to know about life for others and at other times, told by two with the eye and instinct of keen storytellers who know exactly when to divulge, when to pause and hold onto secrets and twists. They also embody the mirror image of those who love to be told a tale by fully displaying the seeming human satisfaction in telling one. Effortlessly weaving through time and connections within the characters’ own era, neighborhood and circles, they also touch our own. 

So much happens in this novel, really a memoir of sorts--beginning in first person and shifting away as Vincenzo picks up--but readers are moved forward, perhaps a reflection of Vincenzo's own perspective and the manner in which he habitually looks forward, rarely dwelling on past events Here, too, the authors, who are in fact cousins telling their own family's story, bring us to witness exactly how much the patriarch values the future and those who will occupy it. Like Clare who learns so much that afternoon, readers will be "exhausted and inspired from the journey[,]" and wouldn't have it any other way. 

Mona Rodriguez and Dianne Vigorito have so graciously offered two copies of Forty Years in a Day for giveaway. To become eligible, simply comment below or at this review's associated Facebook thread. 

You can learn more about the authors and Forty Years in a Day at their website or blog, or follow on Twitter or Pinterest. You may also find Forty Years in a Day for purchase at Amazon.

Anna reviews: The Slave

*********Please see below for giveaway details*********

The Slave by Pauline Montagna

From the moment I first meet Aurelia Rubbini, I am entranced by this girl-woman, all the way from her tawny hair to her mild demeanour. Set in 14^th century Italy, The Slave portrays Aurelia’s life, from the momentous meeting with Batu, a slave from foreign lands that her father has brought home, to her arranged marriage and its subsequent consequences.

The day Batu enters Aurelia’s life, she is awaiting her father’s return home after months on the road. Not that her father does more than throw his daughter a cursory glance, reminding her indirectly just how disappointing it is that she lives when her brother died. Aurelia, however, is more interested in the dark stranger that follows her father into the courtyard. Dirty and dishevelled, with his hands tied and with eyes that regard his new surroundings with apprehension, Batu touches Aurelia’s heart already then. When the newcomer is locked in alone in the cellar, Aurelia braves her fear of the dark to bring him food and a candle. Eyes meet, fingers graze and a tentative friendship is formed.

Before going any further, I must applaud Ms. Montagna for giving us a heroine that comes across as very true to her times. Aurelia is raised to be dutiful and obedient, and for most of the book she remains just that, no matter the rather forced circumstances she finds herself in. Only when she can no longer survive by being compliant does Aurelia rebel – quietly – and reinvent herself.

Where Aurelia is all soft graces and submissiveness, Batu, the slave, is not. Sloe-eyes and black-haired, he stems from somewhere in the east, from the grass-covered steppes that link Europe and Asia. Personally, I would have wanted to know more of Batu’s backstory; as it is he remains something of an enigma. Why, for example, does he never express a desire to go home, not even when Aurelia offers him his freedom?

After that first meeting in the cellar, a special bond evolves between Batu and Aurelia. Too special, Aurelia’s nurse thinks, warning her young charge from showing Batu too much affection. Aurelia is confused but does as she is told, restricting her interaction with Batu to a minimum. Ms. Montagna does a great job of describing the budding illicit romance between these two young people – no more than looks and smiles, the odd word, and yet so palpable.

Aurelia is the daughter of a successful merchant, Francesco Rubbini. There is no loving father-daughter relationship – in fact, there is no relationship at all. Signor Rubbini focuses all his attention on his business and politics, and to achieve his aims he uses his pretty daughter as a pawn, marrying her to Lorenzo, the heir of the Graziano family. Signor Rubbini gets political clout, the Graziano family gets a rich bride, and poor Aurelia gets a husband who doesn’t like women – at all.

With a reluctant groom and an inexperienced bride, the marriage is something of a disaster. Beyond brutally doing his duty on their wedding night, Lorenzo ignores Aurelia, who has no idea as to why Lorenzo treats her like he does.

Thanks to Ms. Montagna’s excellent descriptions – of food, of interiors, of clothing and customs – the reader is very quickly transported to the Italy of the 14^th century. We participate in local feasts, in hunting excursions, in picnics. We are jolted along on uncomfortable carts, we struggle with laces and hose points, we smell linen drying in the sun, we taste roasted chestnuts and venison. At times, we are as breathless as Aurelia is after her numerous turns on the dance floor, and just as Aurelia we are utterly alone when we retire for the night.

The tensions in the Graziano household increase.  Without revealing too much of the plot, let me just say that Ms. Montagna turns the screw tighter and tighter, making it impossible for me, as the reader, to put the book down. Inevitably things explode. A confrontation leads to terrible consequences for Aurelia – and, to some extent, for Batu, who loves her so much and can’t do anything to help her. Come dawn, the Aurelia-Lorenzo marriage is beyond salvaging, and Aurelia returns to her father’s house. Once back home, Aurelia retires into silence, avoiding Batu as much as he avoids her. She is shamed by what he saw, he is shamed by what he was forced to see.

So far into The Slave, it has been a delightful and entrancing read. I have hastened back home from work, woken early in the mornings to read. I have been intrigued by Lorenzo – and it would have been interesting to have more of his point of view – disliked Signor Rubbini, loved Aurelia and Batu. The last part of the novel, however, is not quite as gripping, despite an exciting plotline containing such elements as the Black Death and condottieri. I think this is mainly due to two things: the author is telling a lot of story over fewer chapters, and thereby the flowing pace that characterised the first part of the book is lost; Ms. Montagna suddenly starts referring to Aurelia as “the woman” and similar expressions, creating distance between the reader and Aurelia. Also, where before things had progressed in a timely fashion, in the last few chapters the reader is yanked back and forth in time a tad too abruptly, creating some unnecessary confusion.

This said, Ms Montagna brings The Slave to a satisfactory and inevitable end, thereby concluding an atmospheric and most entertaining read. Thanks to Ms Montagna, I now yearn for Italian landscapes bordered by distant poplars, for warm Italian sun and ancient houses of stone. Aurelia Rubbini will stay with me a long time, and I can’t but hope she led a long and happy life. She deserved to, she and Batu both.

The author has so kindly offered a free e-copy for one winner to claim. To stand a chance at a free copy of The Slave, simply comment below or at our Facebook thread!

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About the author: Pauline Montagna was born into an Italian family in Melbourne, Australia.  While her first career was in finance, after several years of honing her accounting skills Pauline decided to return to university and qualify as a teacher. Further to this, Pauline also completed a Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing. She has now retired from teaching to concentrate on her writing. For more information about Pauline, visit her website. The Slave is available through various distributors, such as Smashwords.

Anna Belfrage is the author of five published books, all part of The Graham Saga. Set in the 17th century, the books tell the story of Matthew Graham and his time-travelling wife, Alex Lind. Anna can be found on amazon, twitter, facebook and on her website. If you would like Anna to review your book, please see our submissions tab above.