Swimming to Elba

July 2, 2012
Avallone's engaging debut novel explores the troubled friendship of two sexually precocious young girls, "thirteen going on fourteen," in the dead-end Italian town of Piombino, where the kids who don't escape often end up toiling at the local Lucchini steel plant. The author deftly captures the miserable home life of Francesca Morganti, the prettiest girl on the Via Stalingrado, whose father, Enrico, beats her and her defeated mother, Rosa. Francesca is in love with her best friend, Anna Sorrentino, who lives one floor up with her overprotective brother, Alessio; her Communist mother, Sandra; and her shady father, Arturo; who disappears for months at a time and returns with armfuls of gifts. Together, the girls dream of making it to Elba, the lush island just a short boat ride away from their constrictive coastal town. But a schism in their relationship is wrought by the arrival of Alessio's friend, Mattia, who's a good 10 years older than the girls and soon captures Anna's attention. Without Anna's friendship, Francesca withers under the rule of her abusive father, and begins to relinquish herself to a bleak future. Avallone does a good job of capturing the intensity of life-long female friendship and concomitant jealousies. Misfortunes pile up in the wake of the girls' absence from one another's lives, and while the central problem is eventually resolved, a handful of lesser plotlines are left dangling.

June 15, 2012
Who can help two young women escape the gravitational pull of their hometown? Can they rely on each other, or will they have to separate and trust others? Avallone's debut novel tells an uneasy coming-of-age story. On the cusp of 14, on the cusp of young womanhood, best friends Anna and Francesca delight in their changing bodies. And so do all the men in town. Whether flaunting their assets in bikinis, sneaking into cabanas with boys, or performing a daily morning striptease, the girls revel in drawing as much attention to themselves as possible. Indeed, Avallone's imagery incessantly sexualizes everything from the girls' bodies to the machinery of the steel mills. Yet, as Francesca's father and Anna's older brother worry about the girls' provocative behavior, they also struggle against economic disparity. Their own crowded shores of Piombino are littered with trash and drugs, while opposite, the pristinely white beaches of Elba beckon. Anna and Francesca will soon have to choose: work in the steel mills, marry a steel worker, or somehow escape to Elba. Staying in Piombino holds little attraction, particularly given the models of their own parents' marriages: Francesca's father is an abusive drunkard while Anna's is a con artist, yet neither mother seems able to leave. Soon a complex constellation of adolescent pressures pushes the girls apart. Anna explores a relationship with her older brother's friend, Mattia. Francesca becomes drawn into the vortex of the darker underbelly of Piombina, including fake girlfriends, lascivious older men and degrading behavior. A chance meeting on Corso Italia, however, forces the girls to realize that they belong together. Yet how can they shed the false friends, bad influences and familial troubles? How can they find their way back to each other and the dreams they shared at the beginning of the summer? A beach read for strong-willed, independent souls.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2012
Simmering sexuality runs through Italian author Avallone's English-language debut, which is set in the industrial town of Piombino. The thriving heart of Piombino is the steel plant, which simultaneously provides a livelihood for the residents and belches out toxic waste, poisoning the air they breathe. At the novel's heart are two families linked together by their 13-year-old daughters, Anna and Francesca, who have been best friends since early childhood. While Anna is the daughter of a gambler and a criminal who has just lost his job at the steel factory, Francesca's father is brutal and abusive, beating both Francesca and her mother. Beautiful and elusive, the girls only have eyes for each other until Anna's head is turned by all the attention the two receive from men. When a friend of Anna's older brother named Mattia swoops in and steals Anna's heart just after Francesca has declared her love for her best friend, the girls' bond is torn apart, setting them both on potentially risky paths. Readers will devour this richly detailed, sensual bildungsroman.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)