Finishing Sigi and the Italian Girl ..... under the same Italian sky

Now I think it is quite appropriate that I should have finished Sigi and the Italian Girl by Stephen Hale, just 20 minutes drive from where it was set just north of Genoa.

We have been staying with our Italian family in Varese, and moved on to a small village on Lake Mergozzo not unlike the place he writes about.

I won’t of course spoil the plot, other than to say it is set in a small mountain community in 1944 and switches from the war to the present.

Stephen captures perfectly small town Italy, where everyone knows what everyone’s family has done all the way back four generations, and where petty rivalries and loyalties can shape who you like, and who you sit with.

In our bit of Varese, Rosa can tell you who ran off without paying at the local bakery, the last time her neighbour washed the curtains and much more.

And sitting in the Piazza Monte Grappa, I can recognise people who could be a double for some of his characters, like the old man sitting in the late September sun or the group of retired friends who walked up and down the Corso Giacomo Matteotti, never quite being able to part from each other’s company.

I watched them walk back and forth, stop, shake hands, tell a final joke, and then stay together for one final walk back past the patisserie, the entrance to the church square, and the statue of one of Garibaldi’s Red Shirts.

And that all makes Sigi and the Italian Girl, a good read because these people walk Stephen's pages.

Not that you have to have lived in Italy to be gripped by the plot or convinced by the characters.

Running through the plot are
themes of resistance, loyalty and hard decisions about how individuals face up to authority.

And on our way here we passed the a big museum to the Resistance and everywhere there are memorials to those who fought the occupying German army and the Fascists.

So more than a bit empathetic.

And that just leaves me to hunt for a postcard to the kids at home in the house.

The book stands on its own and is well worth the read.

It's available in two formats: paperback at £7.99 and Kindle at £2.99.*

Location; Italy

Pictures; cover of Sigi and the Italian Girl, courtesy of Stephen Hales, and the Piazza Monte Grappa and Corso Giacomo Matteotti, 2013, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Sigi and the Italian Girl, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sigi-Italian-Girl-Stephen-Hale/dp/1545431876/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1534927648&sr=8-2&keywords=sigi%20and%20the%20italian%20girl