The Italian Lover

by Robert Hellenga

Overview

An exhilarating novel of romance, art, and food in Florence, featuring the beloved Margot Harrington, who graced Robert Hellenga's The Sixteen Pleasures.

Margot Harrington's memoir about her discovery in Florence of a priceless masterwork of Renaissance erotica -- and the misguided love affair it inspired - is now, 25 years later, being made into a movie. Margot, with the help of her lover, Woody, writes a script that she thinks will validate her life. Of course their script is not used, but never mind -- happy endings are the best endings for movies, as Margot eventually comes to see.

At the former convent in Florence where The Sixteen Pleasures -- now called The Italian Lover - - is being filmed, Margot enters into a drama she never imagined, where her ideas of home, love, art, and aging collide with the imperatives of commerce and the unknowability of other cultures and other people.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316117654
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	02/09/2009
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Robert Hellenga received his B.A. from the University of Michigan and studied at Queen's University in Belfast and the University of North Carolina before completing a Ph.D. in English Literature at Princeton University. He is a professor at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and the author of the novels The Sixteen Pleasures, The Fall of a Sparrow, Blues Lessons, and Philosophy Made Simple.

Editorial Reviews

This is a book about a movie about a book, which is simply to say it's a sequel to Hellenga's first novel, The Sixteen Pleasures…Hellenga smoothly merges past and present while injecting Margot's story with fresh talent…This being Italy, there are affairs, fiery outbursts and lots of rich food. This being Hellenga, the story is just as rich.
—The New York Times

Alison McCulloch

Hellenga reprises protagonist Margot Harrington from The Sixteen Pleasures (1995) in his latest, a romantic comedy about the book-to-film adaptation of Margot's memoir. In the fall of 1990, book restorer and longtime American ex-pat Margot is 53, living in her adopted Florence and awaiting the arrival of a film producer who wants to adapt her 1975 memoir for film. At the same time, Margot meets and falls in love with Alan "Woody" Woodhull, an Illinois-bred guitarist who gigs at the Bebop Club and also teaches literature at the American Academy. Meanwhile, producer Esther Klein desperately wants to make the film The Italian Lover, her first solo production since her husband/production partner left her. The movie crew includes Michael Gardiner, the "middling" director dying of cancer, and Miranda Clark, the young actress desperate to capture the true Margot. Subplots abound and conflicts brew (Woody rescues an abused dog; Miranda has problems with a nude scene), but the characters never come fully to life. Elegant in its colorful use of Italian phrases, cuisine and sites, Hellenga's complex novel offers a vivid, often sophisticated view of modern Florence, but less so of its residents and visitors. (Sept.)

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Publishers Weekly

Hellenga puts a twist on familiar terrain in this sequel to The Sixteen Pleasures. Metafictional gymnastics ensue when a Hollywood producer descends upon Florence with a cast and crew, determined to immortalize The Sixteen Pleasureson film. Renamed The Italian Lover, the producer's script retells the story of book conservator Margot Harrington and the manuscript of Renaissance erotica she rescued from obscurity. Margot, however, has written a script of her own and is determined not to let control of her own life story fall out of her hands. Readers unfamiliar with the original novel may not immediately connect with a story that depends so closely on its predecessor. However, the realism of the filmmaking scenes and the loving depiction of the Florentine landscape just might redeem the novel for those new to Margot's story. Although some characters initially appear flat and irritating, they demonstrate obvious growth as the film shoot progresses, and their story arcs lead readers to conclusions that they may not have anticipated. An unusual experiment; recommended where Hellenga is popular.
—Leigh Anne Vrabel

Library Journal

Hellenga (Philosophy Made Simple, 2006, etc.) returns to Florence, the setting of his celebrated first novel (The Sixteen Pleasures, 1994), this time to chronicle the fictional (so far) production of the movie version of said novel. Film rights to The Sixteen Pleasures, Margot Harrington's memoir of her youthful adventures as a book conservator after the 1966 Florentine floods, have finally emerged from turnaround hell. Margot and her new lover, Woody, a classics professor whose daughter was killed in a terrorist attack at a Bologna train station, are writing the screenplay. Producer Esther has her own script, which "dumbs down" Margot's story of her discovery of that book of 16 erotic sonnets with illustrations, and her bittersweet affair with Italian lothario Sandro, into a conventional romantic comedy, The Italian Lover. Everyone "above the line" on this picture has issues: Margot is facing intimations of lonely old age; Woody is ambivalent about remaining in Italy after he is sued for rescuing an abused dog; Esther is reeling from her recent divorce. Director Michael is dying of prostate cancer; his wife Beryl's total immersion in Italian permits an (almost) guilt-free fling with Zanni, who's starring as Sandro. Leading lady Miranda, who plays 29-year-old Margot, is disappointed that her screen lover Zanni prefers an older woman, and she sides with Margot in the clash of the dueling screenplays. Large chunks of filmmaking how-to may appeal only to movie mavens, but Hellenga expounds on technique to illuminate subtext, as when "middling director" Michael, striving for a final masterpiece, attempts an Altmanesque tracking shot and is stranded on a malfunctioning crane high above thePiazza Degli Uffizi. Hellenga doesn't always heed Michael's storytelling advice, "Intentionality is the enemy." The characters' actions often seem arbitrary and stage-directed, such as Beryl's abrupt retreat to fidelity. The mood is meditative since Margot and the other principals are saying "goodbye to all that," whatever, in each case, "that" may be. Hellenga's delicacy and insight redeem what might have been a mere retrospective rehash of Pleasures.

Kirkus Reviews