Angela Petch

Betrayal and treachery are compelling sentiments to begin a story. Immediately, the
reader is engaged by a harrowing description of the brutality of war. A young lad is being tortured in the village school by traitorous Italians. We don’t know who and we don’t know why.

The author then changes pace, changes the timeline and changes the country. Anna has recently lost her mother, Ines. A parcel arrives.

“A cardboard box, the lid tied down with an old shoelace. Inside a brown envelope bears her name, written in her mother’s flowery handwriting. There are notebooks, bundles of papers rolled up in a perished elastic band and a piece of folded fabric. A sheet of lined notepaper, cheap and old-fashioned, with a spray of violets printed in the corner.”

These are diaries, handwritten in Italian, from her mother. This is a story about secrets, confessions and a mother’s dying wish for her daughter to know the truth. “Do with it what you will.” These are her mother’s haunting instructions. We follow Anna to Rofelle, in Tuscany where she begins her own journey of self-discovery and starts to uncover family mysteries with the help of Francesco, a local widowed lecturer who translates the diaries for her. The story flows effortlessly between timelines and unfurls, just like the bundles of notes, yellowed with age. The more of the diary Anna reads, the more she starts to understand her mother’s life during the war. The reader too, is drawn into a world of poverty, conflict, and hardship. In 1944, the world was locked into a bloody battle with perpetrators and victims on both sides. The author describes the fear of Ines’ family who is hiding a wounded English soldier in their barn.

“We can’t do this. It’s too dangerous. There are too many Germans around. There were ten women, children and old men butchered in Gattara in retaliation for the Partiagiani killing one German soldier. There is no telling who is spying on us at any one moment.”

The author pays tribute to the sacrifices and fortitude of many Italians who helped captured English soldiers, gave them food and shelter. Ines, herself, becomes one of those who risks her own safety to help the cause. Not surprisingly Ines and the Englishman fall in love and marry. Yet, this is only part of the story. At only eighteen years old, Ines leaves Italy to start a new life with her husband. Her new English mother and father-in-law accept her up to a point but her initial experiences are overwhelming. The way of life, customs, behaviours and even the food are completely alien to her and her husband does little to assuage this. The love that she thought she had found proves to be short-lived. The touches of pathos, are invoked by the author in describing the suffering and misery she endures in her marriage but convention at the time dictated that marital problems were concealed. Ines just had to get on with it.

“The poor woman went through the war in Italy, then had another type of personal war to deal with in England. I wish she’d been able to talk to me properly about her life.”
“She is doing it now, with her story,” says Franceso.

As more of the diary is revealed, Anna learns that when her mother returned to Rofelle, some years later to visit her family, she had a clandestine encounter with an old friend, the consequences of which were far-reaching and is a significant part of the story. Keeping a secret can be a burden and the harm comes from having to live with it. We hope that for Anna, the truth is enlightening. Her troubled childhood, conflict, her mother’s often detached attitude and her father’s coldness and aggression. Can the truth vindicate the past?

Why I recommend this book
Highly recommended. I loved this book. It is a book of fiction but was inspired by the author’s mother in law, Giuseppina Micheli who fell in love with an English Captain when they met in Urbino in 1944. The story unfolds on so many levels. An old mill, a wartime love story, an abusive marriage, the ruthless killing of a son and brother to Ines. A mistrustful and bitter old man called Danilo who refuses at first to talk to Anna about the past yet clearly he must remember Ines, her mother.
We revel in the beautiful Tuscan scenery as the background and setting of The Tuscan Secret deliver an authentic journey into the region, past and present due in part to the author’s connection and knowledge of Italian life. No story set in Italy could be complete without talking about regional food.
“Roast peppers, courgettes and aubergines, home-made cappelletti. For the main course, a whole roast suckling pig served with potatoes from the orto roasted in olive oil and rosemary. Nasturtiums, borage, marigold petals arranged in a salad with dandelion leaves and wild sorrel.”
Italian customs, words, and phrases from everyday life are incorporated. She creates a two-dimensional story, one from the 1940s and one in the present day. Impeccable research of historical facts as well as personal memoirs from local people skilfully woven into this moving story not only demonstrates the author’s passion for accuracy but adds a credible and convincing component
The author’s descriptive skill transports the reader and Anna back in time to see the place where her mother lived.
“When her eyes adapt to the gloom, Anna makes out a cracked stone sink under the window. She tries to imagine her grandmother washing pots while looking out at the forest. Discarded on the floor are a broken colander with one leg missing and a ladle without a handle. Plaster crumbles from the walls. A crucifix hangs above an old metal bed frame holding a mouse-nibbled mattress”
Metaphorically speaking, the diaries become a medium by which Anna can unlock the past and not only find her own place in the world but create it. She discovers something more than just heritage - her mother’s bravery and fortitude as well as her mother’s misery and sorrow.
“Starting my mother’s diary is like stepping into a new world for me. I wish I’d been able to appreciate the life she left behind and to understand her.”
Anna’s journey connects with the ghosts of the past to make sense of her own life. We cannot rewrite the past but there is a gentle flow in the book towards perception, understanding and forgiveness. Love may not be eternal but hope and happiness are attainable.
As Oscar Wilde wrote
“The final mystery is oneself!”… (mer)

This seems to be one of those books that reader will either really like or really dislike. I liked parts of it and really disliked others. It starts out very slow with way too much description. I don’t mind pornography as a rule, but this had long passages that were totally unnecessary and added nothing to the story. I did learn that what we as Americans learned in our history class about WWII only told a very small part of the story IF this book tells the entire truth...and I have no reason to believe that it doesn’t... as the author appears to have done her research well. Based on that I now know that we didn’t learn a quarter of the tragedies suffered by the Italian people at the hands of Mussolini. There is a lighter side to the story....You wouldn't be able to finish it if there wasn't. It's a tale of self-discovery. One of Anna learning who she really is and of discovering her Tuscan roots.… (mer)