Lambrusco takes place in 1943 during World War II in German occupied Italy. Italian leader Mussolini is still alive and has many fascist followers throughout Italy. Those fighting the “Blackshirts” have to watch their actions and words to avoid punishment from the Germans and their followers. Lucia Fantini is a soprano who loves to sing opera in their restaurant, music that had been written by the most famous opera composers, but mostly those that were Italian. Lucia and her husband Aldo had owned a Restaurant before the war started and, like many others, lost their businesses to the fascist’s that took over many buildings to assist the Germans. Aldo had died before the war but Lucia can’t get him out of her mind as well as all their children and family that were so close before wartime came to Italy. Many of the Italians worked for the underground movement fighting their enemies and performing many brave acts to assist others fighting those enemies in their own homeland. For many it was “hit, run, and hide” to avoid capture. For their families these patriots were rarely in touch with them but were always hitting the enemy where they could do the most hurt to them.

When villages were hit by bombs destroying or damaging buildings to the point that they were unlivable, the people had to roam the countryside to avoid capture and/or conflict with their enemies. This story took place during a time of history that I have always been eager to learn about from all sides. This is the first book that I have read that tells the war from the Italian side during a time before the allies had liberated Italy from the German occupation. While I feel that Ellen Cooney had a great story to tell, I feel that the intertwining of family and friends made parts of the book quite hard to follow. The last portions of the book did pull many things together where the reader could finally ‘feel’ the action from the authors point of view and absorb her wrap-up of the extensive family actions and reactions to the hurt they endured and had seen through their own eyes.

Lucia and Aldo’s small restaurant had been well known due to the beautiful singing of opera by Lucia. The book opens with Lucia traveling by train attempting to take weapons in disguised bags to the partisans that desperately needed them. She was also in search of her son, Beppi, who had been given credit for blowing up some German trucks. A nun approached her on that train, or so she appeared to be, only to find out that this woman was disguised as a nun and was actually an American Intelligence agent that was there to aid Lucia and actually did save her from capture. The American, Annamarie, had been a golfer in Arizona. She had married an American military officer. During the story, Annamarie was severely injured during some of the fighting.

The story takes you on the travels and tells you the trials and tribulations that partisans went through while they moved from village to small cities and throughout the countryside attempting to evade Germans, fascists, and even the bombs that the American airplanes dropped. These bombs dropped on many of their villages and cities and destroyed and killed many people, friend and foe alike. While I said the book is confusing at times, the story is one that needed to be told. Anyone that knows anything about Italian families knows that many of them are large and in the authors telling of this story, she is bound to cause some confusion. Don’t let that stop you from reading Lambrusco.

REVIEWED BY CY HILTERMAN

DO NOT REPRINT WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE REVIEWER, CY HILTERMAN

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