In 5 generations not many dreams were achieved, not many achievements were celebrated...generally depressing book. ( )

“Josephine Rimaldi......September 24, 1874 - September 24, 1974 ....( matriarch)

Josephine was born on September 24, 1874 in Conca Campania, Italy and she died exactly one hundred years later in Rhode Island.
The story delivers sketches of her and the lives of her large Italian family - children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

multigenerational saga of an Italian American family.......immigration...domestic relations..love and loss.

On her 100th birthday,and facing her death, Josephine does not embrace the children and life she nurtured, but the "things we did not have, the love that broke our hearts, the child we lost..." (pg 283)
This left me with an penetrating emptiness that had slowly accelerated during the novel.
I had hopes for a better understanding of her immigration experience and some in depth family relational development.
I had a problem with the preoccupation of quite a few characters with gratuitous sex.
But, that is my personal feeling.

I guess I felt the novel promoted a shallow saga, short on authenticity.

After reading The Obituary Writer (2013), I was disappointed with this 2014 offering.

Part1 1889-1925
Part2 1938-1956
Part3 1970-1974

My rating is 2.5 ★ ( )

I met Ann Hood back in 1989 at an American Booksellers Association Convention. Her line was not long, but the novel she signed seemed intriguing. I liked it, but it did not overwhelm me. Recently, I stumbled upon The Obituary Writer published in 2013, and that gave me a whole new view of Ms. Hood. Her latest novel, An Italian Wife, represents quite a departure from her earlier works I have read.

This explicit novel tells the story of four generations of Italian women. It begins with Josephine, then her seven children, seven grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren. What all these women show is the transformation in the way women view and react to the men in their lives. It covers them through World War I, World War I, and into VietNam.

Josephine is an entirely innocent 14-year-old when her mother marries her off to a man eleven years her senior. After a horrific wedding night, he promptly leaves for America, promising to send for her when he has established himself in the new world. Fortunately, Josephine does not conceive a child, and nine years later, word comes she will leave for America within a few days. Now 23, Josephine does not want to leave her family, friends, and familiar routine.

In an example of this transformation, Hood describes the experience of Francesca, Josephine’s oldest grandchild, who lost her husband at Normandy. She writes, “Francie Partridge grew up Francesca Caserta less than a mile from Meadowbrook Plat. As she navigated the familiar path home, her car filled with the lilacs she had gathered for her grandmother, Francie felt like she was driving a long distance, traveling to a place far away. Once she passed the French church, where the French Canadians went to mass, she entered the Italian part of town. Instantly, everything looked different. Vegetable gardens replaced backyards; shrines to the Virgin Mary stood in place of barbecue grills or patio furniture; fig trees and cherry trees dotted yards instead of leafy maples and elms. People sat on front steps and sidewalks. Men at folding tables at the edge of the street played cards, smoked cigars, drank homemade wine. Everyone was yelling – fighting, calling children, talking too loud. Francie hated it here. Hated the noise, the smells, the plastic Virgins watching her” (179).

Each generation of women has a completely different attitude toward sex. Warning: the novel contains numerous scenes of explicit sexual encounters of all sorts. I did not see this in The Obituary Writer, which I recently reviewed and enjoyed. I do not recall this from her earlier work, either. However, she shows how women have been “bought and sold” and used and abused over the years. Until they begin to control their own bodies in the seventies. The novel also traces radical changes in the attitude these women had toward religion.

While some readers may be offended, Hood paints a terrific portrait of the changes women have endured, desired, and accepted over the years. In addition, she shows how war has destroyed veterans and torn families apart. This excellent, absorbing novel deserves 5 stars

--Jim, 12/28/14 ( )

So disappointed in this book. Always been a huge fan of Ann Hood but I really disliked this book. My number one thought after reading it: Josephine and her descendants are one horny bunch. I am an Italian who has lived her entire life in Rhode Island (where this book was set). And she did us an injustice. I also found it very difficult to know what year or decade she was in. Isn't Valentina/Martha to old to have a daughter in high school? And if she wasn't married to Robin, how did she know he was killed in the war? Too many holes, discrepancies and gratuitous sex. ( )

Growing up in an Italian-American family, with my father being a 1st generation american born - I found this disrespectful and derogatory to both Italian Immigrants and the Priests of the Catholic church. I have many similar memories noted in this book, but my aunts and uncles and great aunts and great uncles and great grandfather Antonio were all loving and I can't imagine any of them acting or feeling so disrespectful to their parents or italian heritage as noted in this book. I didn't know any italian families that didn't embrace their heritage with pride. I also think the sexual situations are so exaggerated that its ridiculous - totally for shock drama. ... That all said - I totally enjoyed Ann Hood's "The Obituary Writer" but this one I could have passed on. What was the point of this book? ( )