My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
In 1931 an eleven-year-old dust bowl refugee abandoned by her parents is “adopted” by Hollywood actress Patsy Chen who christens her “Sally”. Some years later, following her divorce Patsy leaves her flailing career for Europe, working as a gossip columnist for the Hearst syndicate. Over the next few years, Sally helps Patsy in her assignments, attending parties, hobnobbing with the rich and famous, picking up the scoop on dalliances and scandals and reporting on them under a nom de plum. In 1941, after a selfless act of kindness leaves her stranded in Mussolini’s Italy with no papers, Sally is left to fend for herself, learning how to survive under a fascist regime as WWII rages on. Her story intersects with that of Lapo, a writer and farmer from Siena, who is chosen by Mussolini to ghostwrite a glowing biography and Lapo’s anti-fascist son, Alessandro, who despite his father’s best efforts is unable to avoid being drafted into Mussolini’s army, and eventually stationed in Prague.
The author masterfully weaves the three threads of this story together to give us a remarkable story. However, it did take a while to fully engage in the narrative. I felt the segment about Sally’s experiences as a gossip columnist was a tad too much and should have been condensed. But after the initial twenty-five percent of the novel, the story does pick up and I thoroughly enjoyed following the narrative, eager to see where the story would take us. There is an element of farfetchedness in certain aspects of the story, but this does not detract from the reading experience.
“I was surrounded by people who thought wearing the wrong hat was tragic and knowing the latest dance steps was genius. It was as if the rest of the world and all its woes didn’t exist.”
The author gives us an insightful look into the historical and political backdrop and the impact of the horrors of war and fascism and its aftermath. The author describes the contrasting worlds of the glitz and glamor of the lifestyles of the affluent with their parties and dalliances, almost clueless to the fact that Europe was on the brink of war and the plight of civilians trapped in the Fascist regime, many of whom were not supporters of the ideology being propagated at the time, such as Alessandro, a pacifist conscripted to fight in a war that he did not support, defending a regime and a leader he believed represented evil.
“Alessandro remembered something a professor had said about how as societies collapse, they spend more and more on war, police, and prisons. That professor had then disappeared.”
Alessandro's internal conflict between his beliefs and principles and his duties is excellently depicted as is Lapo’s struggles to keep himself and his family safe as he is forced to follow the dictates of the regime while loathing what they represent including being forced to house political prisoners on the orders of local officials. The author injects a healthy dose of humor and satire (the highlights of Mussolini’s biography had me laughing out loud) into the narrative. I loved how we see Sally evolve from a shallow person (though we cannot completely blame her for this, given that she was nurtured by Patsy to develop such a persona) into a brave and resilient woman, willing to take risks to help those in need of assistance. There are instances wherein Sally’s sassy attitude and upbeat spirit might come across as out of place or even a tad unbelievable but you can’t help but admire how her indomitable spirit and her ability to use humor prove to be helpful in difficult situations, often manipulating said situation in her favor. In that, I found Sally to be an endearing character.
“I know exactly who I am and what I believe. I’m me. We’re not livestock, so lineage doesn’t matter. All humans are created equal. People should always treat each other kindly, especially if they’re strangers. That’s it. That’s who I am and what I believe.”
Overall, I enjoyed Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure by Christine Lynch. Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the digital review copy of this novel. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.
I paired my reading with Elise Roth’s brilliant audio narration which elevated my experience with this novel and made for an engaging immersion reading experience. Many thanks to Macmillan Audio for the ALC.
“It is the historian who decides what was a just war. The person holding the pen, who looks back in judgment on decisions made in agony.”
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