by Cathryn Conroy (Dublin, Ohio): This is one of the best books I have ever read. Yes, it’s that good.
Written by Sarah Winman, this is a story about life and love, about the families in which we are born and the families we create. This is a story that captured my heart and soul and would not let go.
It is also a poetic and charming love letter to Florence, Italy. Just beware: This book will make you want to immediately book a trip to Florence—and maybe even move there.
The novel opens on August 2, 1944 somewhere in the Tuscan Hills. World War II is raging. Bombs are dropping. Life as people know it is being destroyed. We soon meet the two pivotal characters of the book: The 64-year-old spinster Evelyn Skinner, a Renaissance art expert, and Ulysses Temper (Temps for short), a young British soldier stationed nearby. Their serendipitous encounter sets the stage for a delightful novel of lives lived well and the interconnectedness of it all.
The two return to their separate lives in London. Ulysses goes back to work in a pub called the Stoat and Parot and returns to his wife, the beautiful Peg, whom he deeply loves. She doesn’t feel the same way, and so begins a decades-long quest for her to find love. Because of a good deed Ulysses did while he was a soldier in Florence saving a man from suicide, he surprisingly inherits several large apartments in Florence into which he moves, along with eight-year-old Alys (a child Peg had with an American soldier who has long disappeared), his good friend Cressy, and Cressy’s talking parrot, Claude. The bulk of the novel is the wonderful life they create together in Florence, initially surrounded by wary neighbors who soon enough lovingly adopt this eccentric group of Brits as their own.
Each character is richly and deeply depicted—so real, so alive, so fully animate that I wanted to live with them—be their friend, be their family, be with them.
This is a delightful and imaginative book that celebrates life, love, family, and art, especially Renaissance art. It is extraordinarily well written with humor, joy, and breathtaking descriptions of nature and food (oh the food!). The writing ranges from casual and witty to lyrical and poetic. It is perfect!
Bonus for English majors: There are fun and creative parallels to the pensione in E.M. Forster’s “A Room With a View” with Mr. Forster himself making a major appearance at the end of the book.
This brilliant and magical novel is a treasure and a literary gift. I am in awe of this book!
