Why read on Fable?
Publisher Description
“A courageous novel, beautifully imagined and written.”
—Elena Lappin, The Washington Post
"De Cespedes' work has lost none of its subversive force”
—The New York Times Book Review
* "De Céspedes’s melancholy testament to a hidden life feels timeless and vital."
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
From the author of Forbidden Notebook, Alba de Céspedes, a richly told novel she called “the story of a great love and of a crime.”
As she looks back on her life, Alessandra Corteggiani recalls her youth during the rise of fascism in Italy, the resistance, and the fall of Mussolini, the lives of the women in her family and her working-class neighborhood, rigorously committed to telling “her side of the story.”
Alessandra witnesses her mother, an aspiring concert pianist, suffer from the inability to escape her oppressive marriage. Later, she is sent away to live with her father's relatives in the country, in the hope she’ll finally learn to submit herself to the patriarchal system and authority. But at the farm, Alessandra grows increasingly rebellious, conscious of the unjust treatment of generations of hardworking women in her family. When she refuses the marriage proposal from a neighboring farmer, she is sent back to Rome to tend to her ailing father.
In Rome, Alessandra meets Francesco, a charismatic anti-fascist professor, who ostensibly admires and supports her sense of independence and justice. But she soon comes to recognize that even as she respects Francesco and is keen to participate in his struggle to reclaim their country from fascism, this respect is unrequited, and that her own beloved husband is ensnared by patriarchal conventions when it comes to their relationship.
In these pages, De Céspedes delivers a breathtakingly accurate and timeless portrayal of the complexity of the female condition against the dramatic backdrop of WWII and the partisan uprising in Italy.
—Elena Lappin, The Washington Post
"De Cespedes' work has lost none of its subversive force”
—The New York Times Book Review
* "De Céspedes’s melancholy testament to a hidden life feels timeless and vital."
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
From the author of Forbidden Notebook, Alba de Céspedes, a richly told novel she called “the story of a great love and of a crime.”
As she looks back on her life, Alessandra Corteggiani recalls her youth during the rise of fascism in Italy, the resistance, and the fall of Mussolini, the lives of the women in her family and her working-class neighborhood, rigorously committed to telling “her side of the story.”
Alessandra witnesses her mother, an aspiring concert pianist, suffer from the inability to escape her oppressive marriage. Later, she is sent away to live with her father's relatives in the country, in the hope she’ll finally learn to submit herself to the patriarchal system and authority. But at the farm, Alessandra grows increasingly rebellious, conscious of the unjust treatment of generations of hardworking women in her family. When she refuses the marriage proposal from a neighboring farmer, she is sent back to Rome to tend to her ailing father.
In Rome, Alessandra meets Francesco, a charismatic anti-fascist professor, who ostensibly admires and supports her sense of independence and justice. But she soon comes to recognize that even as she respects Francesco and is keen to participate in his struggle to reclaim their country from fascism, this respect is unrequited, and that her own beloved husband is ensnared by patriarchal conventions when it comes to their relationship.
In these pages, De Céspedes delivers a breathtakingly accurate and timeless portrayal of the complexity of the female condition against the dramatic backdrop of WWII and the partisan uprising in Italy.
5 Reviews
4.0
Wei An See
Created 3 months agoShare
Report
natalie 🐝
Created 4 months agoShare
Report
“Do not underestimate the length of this novel like I did. This is probably because there are no chapters, but this feels longer than 500 pages.
I found de Céspedes' writing style captivating from the start. It's one of those things you read that you wish you could've written yourself. The first half of the book is full of interactions between Alessandra and other women, and it is by far the strongest part of the novel as a whole. The atmosphere de Céspedes created, the characters she fleshed out, all of it was a wonderful surprise and I really adored them, with all their melancholy and melodrama attached.
The second half of this book really disappointed me, and I feel like the Alessandra we came to know and love in the first 250 pages becomes unrecognizable after her infatuation with Francesco. I'll even use the word "contrived". I think I would've appreciated clearer political conversations. Instead we get a lot of "bombs" and "them" and "us" talk. Anti-fascist is used when she and Francesco start to court, but slowly fades away after that. The war is too vaguely referenced in order to feel like what is happening on the page is... worth caring about. And I won't really go into all that I found obnoxious about the Tomaso fiasco. I just thought it was a very unfair way to treat the character, and I ended up feeling far more annoyed with Alessandra than sympathetic.
This book touches on a lot of what it feels like to be a woman and never feel understood by anyone ever, even when you try to explain. To feel shushed even before you open your mouth. I really resonated with a lot of those emotions portrayed. I also think there is potential to do a "queer reading" of this book, between Alessandra and Fulvia (I mean really, even the name...)”
Appenthaknows
Created 5 months agoShare
Report
“I am finally reading this, I was almost afraid to start because I knew it would be REALLY SOMETHING. Let me share, it is a work of profound beauty and genius.
Alessandra recounts the story of her life, of the conditions that created and forged her passionate character. This is a stunning novel, across three parts we read of childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. This is not simply coming of age, it is coming of womanhood, of bearing the brunt of all that man has burdened women with. An intensely feminist work, it embraces the very nature of the levels in which we meet and realise ourselves unequal. Set in Rome against the backdrop of WWII, De Céspedes reclaims the female perspective of living under this period, of the vital and dangerous work women did and the horrific conditions the people struggled to survive under. It is perhaps the best explanation of living under fascistic rule I have encountered, the dark malaise that keeps the people unhappy and unquestioning. It is a story of endurance and strength, of drawing upon that reserve of all that has gone before in order to remain.
Love is the principle, foundation and driving force in this book. It motivates and propels every action and reaction and sustains Alessandra through the most harrowing times. Every woman is in here, you are in here. We all are. There’s something both insanely pleasing and terrifying that 75 years after this was written Alba is calling through the ages and we look up to find that we understand her words and yet we are still trapped behind that cold wall.
#albadecéspedes
#Hersideofthestory transl. by #jillfoulston
#Pushkinpress @pushkin_press
#feministfiction #antifascistreading #fictionintranslation #italianfiction #readbeforeyoudie”
Alessandra De Tommaso
Created 7 months agoShare
Report
About Alba de Céspedes
Alba de Céspedes (1911–1997) was a bestselling Italian-Cuban feminist writer greatly influenced by the cultural developments that lead to and resulted from World War II. In 1935, she was jailed for her anti-fascist activities in Italy. Two of her novels were also banned—Nessuno Torna Indietro (1938) and La Fuga (1940). In 1943, she was again imprisoned for her assistance with Radio Partigiana in Bari, where she was a resistance radio personality known as Clorinda. After the war, she moved to Paris, where she lived until her death in 1997.
TRANSLATOR BIO: Jill Foulston is the translator of novels by Erri de Luca, Augusto de Angelis, and Piero Chiara.
TRANSLATOR BIO: Jill Foulston is the translator of novels by Erri de Luca, Augusto de Angelis, and Piero Chiara.
Other books by Alba de Céspedes
Start a Book Club
Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!FAQ
Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?
Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?
How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?
Do you sell physical books too?
Are book clubs free to join on Fable?
How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?
Save to a list
0
/30
0
/100
Private List