Introduction

It’s been fifty years since Antonio Grasso married Maddalena and brought her to America. That was the last time she saw her parents, her sisters and brothers—everything she knew and loved in the village of Santa Cecilia, Italy. Maddalena sees no need to open the door to the past and let the emotional baggage and unmended rifts of another life spill out.

But Prima was raised on the lore of the Old Country. And as she sees her parents aging, she hatches the idea to take the entire family back to Italy—hoping to reunite Maddalena with her estranged sister and let her parents see their homeland one last time. It is an idea that threatens to tear the Grasso family apart, until fate deals them some unwelcome surprises, and their trip home becomes a necessary journey.
All This Talk of Love is an incandescent novel about sacrifice and hope, loss and love, myth and memory.

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Excerpt

Did I miss the big announcement?”

“You’re in luck,” Prima says.

She takes him by the hand and leads him toward the head table. When

they reach the dance floor, their mother spots him. It occurs to Prima at

this moment — as Maddalena jumps out of her chair and runs to greet her

son — that all Frankie needs to do to fill his mother’s heart is walk into a

room. There are tears in Maddalena’s eyes like he’s a soldier stepping off

a warship. She’s seen him as recently as the Fourth of July, when he came

down to Prima’s beach house for a few days, but it might as well have been a

decade ago. When you have lost one of your own children, every day apart

from the ones who survived seems endless. Prima lets go of her brother’s

hand, steps to the side as their mother embraces him, and searches the room

for other early departures to bid good night.

Before long, the guests have all gone, taking with them the heavy glass

vases of orange dahlias, the cake in wax paper bags. Prima and Tom stand

at the head table, her arm around his waist, her head on his shoulder. Their

family sits before them: her mother and father, three of their boys, Frankie

eating a warmed-up plate of lasagna. Behind them, the violinist snaps his

case shut and shakes hands with the cellist. It is six o’clock, nearly dark, and

through the windows they can see the last of the golfers carrying their gear

to the parking lot.

“Oh well,” says her mother, rubbing her arms and standing. “They’re

going to kick us out, I guess.”

“Hold on one second, Mamma,” says Tom.

Antonio puts his hand on his wife’s leg. “What’s your rush?” he says.

Ryan, shirt untucked, returns from the men’s room, glances around at his

parents and brothers and grandparents and uncle all sitting quietly. “What’d

I miss?” he asks.

“Your mother has something to say,” Tom tells him.

“Oh, right!” says Ryan. “The big finale.”

The folded papers in Prima’s hands suddenly take on a weight. For weeks

she’s been eager to hand them to the seven people gathered around the table,

but now, inexplicably, she wants to keep them to herself a bit longer.

“Can I guess?” asks Matt.

“Sure.”

“Really? OK, hold on. Let me think.”

“You’re buying a boat,” says Maddalena. She’s sitting up straight in her

chair, ready to be proud of what her daughter can afford.

“Nope,” Tom says. “But that’s not a bad idea.”

“You bought both those plots in Greenville,” Maddalena guesses again.

“So me and your father can live with you.”

“Colder,” says Tom. “We’re selling that lot for a nice little profit, by the

way. We’ll need it.”

“This news involves us all,” Prima says. “Not just me and Tom.”

Maddalena narrows her eyes. “Why does that make me nervous?” she

says. “Don’t tell me you’re moving somewhere far. You can’t go chasing your

kids —”

“No, of course not,” says Prima. “But actually, yes, temporarily we’re all

moving. Far far away.” She takes a deep breath, locks eyes with her mother.

“We’re going back to the Old Country, all of us. To the Grassos’ ancestral

village, Santa Cecilia, where it all began. For two weeks.”

“Awesome!” says Matt.

“Talk serious,” Maddalena says, crossing her arms.

“I’m very serious,” Prima says. “It’s not difficult. I buy the tickets. I call a

few relatives. We get on a plane.”

“I’m there,” says Ryan.

“Oh yes, it’s very easy,” Maddalena says. Everyone’s looking at her. She

shakes her head, folds her arms more tightly across her chest, the way Patrick

used to do when he wouldn’t eat his peas. “You knew about this, Frankie?”

Frankie shakes his head.

“I didn’t think so.”

“It’s like a resort now,” says Tom, gently. “There are five or six hotels, right

smack in the village of Santa Cecilia. And even if there weren’t, there’s so

much to see in Italy. Prima’s mapped out a bunch of day trips. We want the

family to learn its history.”

“I know my history,” Maddalena says. “So does he.” She ticks her head

toward Antonio. “I don’t tell you enough times I’ll never go back there? You

call it a gift to force me?”

“You weren’t kidding,” Tom says to Prima, under his breath.

“I knew you wouldn’t be thrilled,” Prima says to her mother. “But this

isn’t only about you. There are other people at the table here today. Do you

ever think about what Dad wants? How about your grandsons? Us? Do you

know how embarrassed I get every time I tell somebody I’ve never been to

my homeland?”

“Embarrassed?” says Frankie, again with the smug face.

“She’s got such a sad life, doesn’t she, Frankie?” Maddalena says. “She

wants to go to Italy so bad, why doesn’t she go herself?”

“I’m still here, Ma,” Prima says.

“Nobody’s stopping you, Prima. You’ve got money. I tell your father all the

time: ‘Let your daughter take you back. Don’t drag me into it.’ ”

“You haven’t heard her say that, Prima?” mutters Frankie. “Did you two

just meet?”

Prima shakes her head at her brother. “I’ve heard it,” she says. “I live here.

I know her better than anybody. Without her in Italy, though, it won’t be

the same. And what, she’s supposed to stay here by herself when we all go?”

“I don’t have to go,” Frankie says.

“I’ll say one thing,” Antonio says. He leans back in his chair, presses his

fingertips to the edge of the table. “This is the best idea I’ve ever heard.”

“Finally!” Tom says. “Somebody likes it.”

“We like it!” Ryan adds.

“There’s only one mistake you made,” Antonio continues. “No way in

the world you’re spending all that money on us. I’m paying the tickets for

everybody.”

“Save your breath, Pop,” says Prima. “Because — and hear me on this — it’s

already done.” She waves the folded envelopes at them. “Right here, eight

prepaid travel vouchers. Nonrefundable. Departure date: August 10, 2000.

Return date: August 25.”

“No shit!” says Patrick.

“I told you I was serious.”

“But Frankie has school,” Antonio says.

“In August?” Prima answers. “Even Frankie doesn’t go to school in August.

The details we can work out as we go forward, but for now we’re all

going to clear our schedules for August 10. That’s ten months away; plenty of

time to plan, cover the restaurant, knock some sense into you, Mom, whatever

we need to do.”

“All that money wasted,” says Maddalena. She takes her fork and pushes a

bite of cake around her plate. “It’s a shame. I’m staying here. Call the airplane

company and tell them I died.”

“Jesus Christ,” Prima says.

“This is supposed to be exciting,” says Tom. “Prima and I have been wanting

to make this happen for years, not just for us, for everybody. Since the

day we met we’ve been talking about a Grasso-Buckley family trip to Italy.

Doesn’t it sound like a movie?”

“Good news is long overdue in this family,” says Prima. “That’s all we’re

trying to do: give the Grassos a happy memory.”

Maddalena stops listening to this nonsense. Why bother? They speak for

her. Always people speak for her, tell her what she really means, how to pronounce

the words so they sound not only like correct English but less angry,

less sad. First her mother and father spoke for her; then, when she was just

a teenager — barely nineteen! — Antonio Grasso came along in his suit and

his zio’s car and did the talking. She has never been back to Santa Cecilia,

not even for a visit, not once in the fifty years since Antonio married her and

brought her to America, and she’s not about to start now. Unlike him, she

still has her people in that village. She remembers them how they were when

she left them in 1946. Now most of them are bones in the ground behind

the church. Mamma and Babbo, her sisters and brothers, Teresa, Celestina,

Maurizio, Giacomo. Too much family to lose in one lifetime. It’s not enough

to bury your own son, now they want her to go back for the bones of the others,

too? Now she has only one brother left, Claudio, and one sister, Carolina,

but she hasn’t spoken to them in twenty years. She won’t see them old and

sick, not after working so hard, every day, to keep them young and beautiful

and full of life in her mind. No. She won’t let that happen.

She could be loud about it now, but she won’t, not here, not on her grandson’s

special day. Not with Frankie beside her. If she makes a fuss, she’ll scare

him off. So she pushes the slice of cake around her plate until it hardens to a

paste. Her eyes wander the room. She notices the spill stains on the carpets

by the bathroom, the chips in the saucers, the dust on the drapes. In the

corners of Prima’s eyes — look how she’s talking now, on and on, her and

her surprises — are a web of wrinkles, and not just when she smiles. Liver

spots cover her once-perfect wrists. No, that’s Maddalena’s own face in the

mirrored wall; that’s her spotted, wrinkled old-lady skin. Santa Cecilia was

the one place on Earth where she was young. She was a beauty and a talker

there, an expert at voices, an actress in the making. What belongs to her and

her alone is that village during those nineteen years, her memories of it, of

who she might have been, the view from the terrace above her father’s store,

the stairs to her bedroom, made of marble, the tops of the trees scraping the

sky. Go back now, see it all changed, and that, too, will be taken away.

all this talk of love

by Christopher Castellani

isbn 978-1-61620-170-8

On Sale February 2013 view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. In what ways does Tony's absence continue to affect each character's perspective and the way the characters see their role and future?

2. What keeps Frankie with Rhonda for most of the novel? Do you think he's better off with Kelly Anne? Why do you think Frankie ultimately chooses to settle down with her?

3. What do you think the epigraph refers to? Do you think it applies more to one character or to all the characters equally?

4. What about this particular immigrant family is similar to other immigrant families you've read about? What is different?

5. What does Italy represent to each of the characters, and how does that change by the end of the novel?

Weblinks

»	Author Christopher Castellani's web site
»	Publisher's Book Info

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