An Italian Wife

June 16, 2014
Hood (The Obituary Writer) crafts a stark tale of loss and longing with story of one woman’s life in Italy and America. Wed at 15 to an ambitious landowner 11 years her senior, Josephine Rimaldi emigrates to Rhode Island. Trapped in a loveless marriage, she takes comfort in what’s most familiar: too many children, iron-clad tradition, and a demanding church. The only passion Josephine finds is an affair that ends with an infant daughter given up for adoption, a loss that haunts both her and her lover. With heartbreaking regularity, each succeeding generation yearns for a better life but surrenders to disappointment: Josephine’s son Carmine, whose stint in WWII leaves him shell-shocked and adrift; widowed granddaughter Francie, who’s shunned by suburban wives and wooed by their husbands; the granddaughter that Josephine never knew, love-starved Penny, whose relationship with her mother, Martha, falls victim to an obsessive search for Josephine; and dreamer great-granddaughter Aida, who runs away from her family to a vague, unsettled future. On her 100th birthday, Josephine does not embrace the children and life she nurtured, but the “things we did not have, the love that broke our hearts, the child we lost…”

July 1, 2014

Best-selling author Hood (The Obituary Writer) has written a multigenerational saga of an Italian American family. Readers meet eight-year-old Josephine, living in a small village in early 1900s Italy with her family. At this young age, Josephine is betrothed and then one week before she turns 14 she weds Vincenzo Rinaldo, who a few days later emigrates to America. Nine years later, he is able to send for Josephine, who finds America an odd place, quite unlike her native village. The years pass; seven children are born to the Rimaldis, but Josephine, who continues to feel like a stranger in a strange land, also is unsure about marriage, uncertain of her husband, and still somewhat confused by American life. VERDICT With each chapter a coming-of-age tale of an individual family member, Hood offers a poignant view of the turbulent 20th century. She successfully displays the connected, ordinary lives of her characters, whom readers will come to love, appreciate, and enjoy. This intricately woven, engrossing narrative will delight Hood's readers and attract fans of literary family sagas. [See Prepub Alert, 3/17/14.]--Andrea Tarr, Corona P.L., CA

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