‘Solitaria’ by Genni Gunn

Reviewed by Elizabeth Bricknell

“How easy it is,” thinks David, the protagonist of Genni Gunn’s third novel, Solitaria, “to go from a loner to alone. One letter away.” He is referring to his octogenarian aunt, Piera, who is known to her family and village as solitaria, alone, versus solitario, which gives the impression that she has chosen to live as a recluse. She shuns her large family and allows only her nephew David into her locked chambers, but it becomes apparent that her formerly loving and supportive family now view her with scorn, contempt and avoidance. But why? And what happened to Vito?

Gunn has a fresh and epigrammatic writing style, perhaps unsurprising in someone who has also published poetry and short fiction. Solitaria is a compelling read and the ending comes as a total shock even to the armchair detectives who explore every angle to the enigmatic Piera’s story as she relates it to David. Her aged family have gathered from across the world when the body of the eldest brother, Vito, is found, having been dead since the 1950’s, when presumed living in anonymity in Argentina. It is the present day, but the novel’s laurels lie in her childhood recollections of Mussolini’s Italy, evoking rare and unusual sympathies for the confused Fascists who, like Piera’s family, survived on rationed bread and dandelion greens.

However, the characters themselves, save David the nephew and Piera’s dead husband, are not sympathetic. They perform actions that change their worlds, but they themselves do not change, for the most part remaining bitter and resentful, revolving in an unending pity party.  Piera views herself as a Scarlett O’Hara who marries a much older man to save the family from poverty, debts and pay for tuition, but the family insinuates that she is nasty, domineering and critical. As David points out, the character sketch of her based on stories from the family would be thus:

Donna Piera — La Solitaria, as she is referred to by the townspeople — is not docile or senile, ill or still. She rarely goes out of her house, yet people of her generation cross themselves when they hear her name – either as a protection against her or as a benediction towards her. She is not bedridden, penniless or feeble. She interacts with the world outside her house through the telephone, with a tongue so sharp and barbed, people inspect their ears after a call, looking for puncture marks.

It is a clothes-hanger plot, with Vito Santoro, the dead man, as the link between their childhoods and the present.  Piera allows Vito’s widow, Teresa, whom he deserted with a baby son, to live with her, and likens her to a “barnacle clinging to a rod.”  As children and young people, Piera and Vito have a close relationship that makes the Oscar embrace between Angelina Jolie and her brother look chaste; as he was sent away for many years of his childhood, he never bonded with his family. Piera finds him intriguing:

What drew me to him? I don’t know…What’s difficult to explain are the contradictions of Vito’s nature. He could fight with Papa one moment, then help him in the field the next. He could steal money from Mamma’s purse, then buy her extravagant gifts. With the younger children, he was always sweet, considerate. He beseeched Clarissa to sing for him: he recited the poetry of Carducci, Virgil and Dante…. He was a chameleon, and we all loved him, and of this, he took advantage.

It is obvious from the first page of Solitaria that one needs to be Italian, have spent many vacations in Italy, or have a Fodor guide and Google Translate on the screen to be thoroughly comfortable. Until I found out the author was from Trieste, I thought it overly twee and frustrating, as she is irregular with her translations and most of her common Italian phraseology is unnecessary. But that is the only area in which Gunn is not consistent. Her plots, characterizations and long narratives of local flora are second to none, except perhaps those of Hardy’s rolling hills of Wessex. The Italian customs and superstitions are fascinating, from malocchio — the evil eye — to La Bocca della Verità (“the Mouth of Truth”), featured in Roman Holiday, which allegedly snaps the fingers off any liar who dares to put her hand in its mouth. When Piera’s wealthy husband buys her family a house in town, her father gives her the replica of the mask that has hung on their wall since before her birth, saying, “This kept you humble throughout your childhood. May it help you now to keep your pride in check.”

A cheerful romp in the park Solitaria is not, but it is one you cannot put down. Again, it serves to illustrate that everyone’s memories and experiences, even of the same events, are vastly different, even as we revolve in our own self-serving orbits.