The Fall of a Sparrow

by Robert Hellenga

Robert Hellenga's superb debut, The Sixteen Pleasures, took the reader to 1960s Florence--a place of floods, fine art, and erotic discovery. His new novel, The Fall of a Sparrow, also opens in Italy, now transformed by the onslaught of terrorism. By 1980, this state of emergency even reaches the U.S., destroying one Midwestern family. Seven years later, Alan "Woody" Woodhull, popular classics teacher at a small Midwestern college, has yet to recover from the loss of his daughter Cookie in a Bologna train station bombing. Under financial pressure from his estranged wife (who's about to enter a convent) and in increasing professional peril (thanks to a high level of self-destructive behavior), he decamps for Italy, intent on bearing witness at the trial of his daughter's killers. The proceedings don't come off as Woody had planned. He does, however, encounter a series of richly drawn Italians--including the father of one terrorist--who are quick to share the benefits of their classical, sensual culture. (Caveat lector, this is a big, big book, and any attempt at synopsis conceals rather than discloses its ample treasures.)

The Fall of a Sparrow is a study in narrative, cultural, and psychological chaos. Woody does his level best to make meaning out of senselessness--in particular, the death of his daughter, but also the subsequent breakup of his family: "Cookie's death was like a cable, binding us to the past," he thinks. "Sometimes we'd think we'd slipped the cable and were running free, but then we'd be brought up short, like a dog that forgets it's on a chain." Again and again, he strives to break free, through literature, music (the blues), sex, and the strength of love. But what he has to learn, and what the book ultimately imparts, is that the past is not to be forgotten or surmounted but absorbed. In addition to his subtle psychological portraits of Woody and his remaining daughters, Hellenga also excels when it comes to the large scale. With his widescreen vision, he creates memorable, almost inhabitable slices of Italian--and American--life.

Genres: Fiction, Italy, Contemporary, Book Club, Family, Grief, Academia

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Robert Hellenga was an American novelist, essayist, and short story author.
His eight novels included The Sixteen Pleasures, The Fall of a Sparrow, Blues Lessons, Philosophy Made Simple, The Italian Lover, Snakewoman of Little Egypt, The Confessions of Frances Godwin and Love, Death, & Rare Books. In addition to these works, he wrote a novella, Six Weeks in Verona, along with a collection of short stories in The Truth About Death and Other Stories. Hellenga also published scholarly essays and literary or travel essays in various venues, including The National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times Sophisticated Traveler, and The Gettysburg Review.
Hellenga was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and grew up in Milwaukee and Three Oaks, Michigan. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan and his graduate work at the Queen’s University of Belfast, the University of North Carolina, and Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton and began teaching English literature at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1968. In 1973–74 he was co-director of the ACM Seminar in the Humanities at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and in 1982–83 he directed the ACM Florence programs in Florence, Italy. He also worked and studied in Bologna, Verona, and Rome. He was distinguished writer in residence and professor emeritus at Knox College. Hellenga was married and had three daughters.
Hellenga received awards for his fiction from the Illinois Arts Council and from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Sixteen Pleasures received The Society of Midland Authors Award for Fiction published in 1994. The Fall of a Sparrow was included in the Los Angeles Times list of the "Best Fiction of 1998" and the Publishers Weekly list of the "Best 98 Books." Snakewoman of Little Egypt, was included in The Washington Post's list of "The Best Novels of 2010" and Kirkus Reviews' list of "2010 Best Fiction: The Top 25." The audio version of Snakewoman was a 2011 Audie Award Winner for Literary Fiction. The Confessions of Frances Godwin received The Society of Midland Authors' Award for fiction published in 2014.
Hellenga died of neuroendocrine cancer on July 18, 2020, at his home in Galesburg, Illinois.

Reviews

[Joy D · Rating 2 out of 5]

While traveling in Italy in 1980, the twenty-two-year-old eldest daughter of the Woodhull family is killed in a terrorist attack. Her parents live in rural Illinois. Her father,“Woody” Woodhull, is a college professor whose life goes off the rails in the aftermath of the tragedy. Her mother has a breakdown and joins a convent. The book is told in alternating perspectives of Woody and middle daughter, Sarah.

I liked the writing style and Sarah’s chapters. The narrative related to a family divided by grief is heartbreaking. Woody’s chapters are too disturbing for my taste (horrific injuries from a terrorist attack, an affair between a professor and student, and many graphic sex scenes). I have enjoyed other novels by this author, but this one is not for me.

[Marvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book on many big topics: love, death (& grieving for the death of a loved one), sex, family relationships, politics, justice, forgiveness, faith, doubt, commitment to a career, openness to new starts after children are grown, & interpretation of the classics. It's uplifting to have such immersion in the life of the mind be so taken-for-granted in a character who also cares deeply for his family & enjoys playing the blues guitar. Woody is, in fact, one of my favorite characters in contemporary fiction, along with Rabbit Angstrom, Father Melancholy's Daughter, Danny & the narrator in The Chosen & The Promise, Owen Meany, & the main character in Body & Soul (whom Woody probably most resembles).

[Lois Maharg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hellenga writes well. Some of the descriptive passages, particularly the ones set in Italy, are vivid and evocative of place. Yet I never did warm up to any of the characters in this book. It's about a man's journey through grief, and the story that unfolds is told mostly from his point of view. But the central character's self absorption and his lack of empathy for others did not make him very likeable. Plus some of the female characters were not much more than caricatures. I usually finish books I start and I finished this one. But the payoff was not great enough for me to recommend it to others.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beyond the author's skillful use of language and the color of Italy, the love Woody feels for his daughters is refreshing. His reawakening to the basic pleasures of his life, namely his music, desires, and cooking, pave the path for his rebirth to a new and fulfilling life. I read this book slowly, taking the time to visualize both the settings and the emotions. One of my favorite books.

[Chrissie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book b/c it ties you to different geographic places. not just Italy and the American Midwest. It is about music, bats, love and feelings between children and their parents. Who has the harder time letting go - the child or the parent?

[H.L. Gibson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This novel was quite a disappointment after the brilliant read that was Mr. Hellenga's first book, The Sixteen Pleasures. Hot mess train wreck is the best description for this novel which was all over the place. The sex scenes read like a creepy old man's fantasies, and one interaction between the protagonist and his dead daughter was absolutely revolting. The characters weren't at all likable. I know many authors swear they don't write themselves and/or their opinions into their books, but the fact that it's his/her creation makes me incredibly skeptical. I say this because I suspect the author has an issue with religion, specifically Christianity represented by Catholicism, as evidenced by the subtle slams against it and a few against Jews as well. Muslims, on the other hand, were well-represented in this novel. The story and the characters came across as incredibly Godless. Overall, The Fall of a Sparrow was a chore to read.

[Theresa Antes · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't often give up on a book, but after 160 pages, I abandoned this one. If you like books about how grieving men fill the void with sex, this book if for you. If not, choose something else.

[Tuikku · Rating 4 out of 5]

hardly enjoyed this lol but the writing was so good

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books I had lots and lots of mixed feeling about. It turned out not to be the book I was thinking of, but one I'd never read before. I loved The Sixteen Pleasures by the same author, but found this one more uneven and harder to get into-- but I think that is my own weakness, not the fault of the author. The book is set against the backdrop of a difficult situation-- the death of Woody's oldest daughter in a terrorist bombing that occurred in Bologna in August, 1980. The novel begins seven years after the bombing. It is a year of crisis , turmoil and chance in the family, for Woody, his wife and his two living daughters. It is also the year the terrorists are finally to go on trial in Bologna.

As mentioned in the publisher's blurb, Woody is a classics professor. The novel is filled with quotes and references to the classics, some still in the original Greek. It bounces between first person narration by Woody's middle daughter, and a third person narration focusing on Woody and his relationships to the women in his life, living and dead. The interjection of Sara's voice reminded me of a Greek Chorus in one of the tragedies... interesting device. How love can be a thing of great beauty, but also bring pain, about the strength of love, and the strength of death, about growth, remembering, healing and forgiveness. There are some very amusing bits in there about love, sex, bats, and even a good explanation of String Theory!

There was an interesting discussion about midway through, where Sara reflects on her sister's death and how "(it) wasn't just the end of our life together as a family; it was the end of my expectations about what our life was going to be in the future. It was like reading a short store and thinking it was a novel. You think you've got a couple of hundred pages to go, but all of a sudden you're at the end. The story you were reading is over. That's it. The rest of the books is other stories."

I need to digest this one a bit more, I think.

The author gives three quotes at the beginning for glimpses into the title:



Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father knowing. Matthew 10:29

‘Such,’ he said, ‘O King, seems to me the present life of men on earth, in comparison with the time which to us is uncertain, as if when on a winter’s night you sit feasting with your ealdormen and thegns,—a single sparrow should fly swiftly into the hall, and coming in at one door, instantly fly out through another. In that time in which it is indoors it is indeed not touched by the fury of the winter, but yet, this smallest space of calmness being passed almost in a flash, from winter going into winter again, it is lost to your eyes. Somewhat like this appears the life of man; but of what follows or what went before, we are utterly ignorant.’

Bede, ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’ bk. 2, ch. 13

and

There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow
- Hamlet V.II

[Walt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finished reading Robert Hellenga’s novel, The Fall of a Sparrow, a few days ago. It was okay. It told intimate—sometimes off-putting—details about the impact upon the life of Midwestern college classics professor, Alan Woodhull, aka Woody, from the death of his daughter, Cookie, age 22. Cookie, who was set to attend graduate school in Italy in 1980, died when terrorists bombed a Bologna train station. Most of the novel is told in third person from Woody’s POV, but part of it is told from surviving daughter Sara’s first person POV.

Hellenga has a great grasp of language, learning, and storytelling. What he seems to lack in this novel is a sense of discretion, both in its telling and in Woody’s character. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Woody’s wife of long standing leaves him for the convent, ostensibly over a disagreement over an inscription—His will is our peace—to be affixed to Cookie’s tombstone. His two surviving daughters grow up and go off on their own, leaving him more or less alone and without the need to nurture them any longer as a parent. So Woody buys an ostentatious and costly guitar, has an affair with a student, and spirals slowly downward, losing his job, his home . . .. Nonetheless, in this downward trend he continues to see the world through ancient history and the classics, although not so much so through faith. Big themes: Reason versus faith. Forgiveness. I guess I could say the book is about Woody’s transformation stemming from the tragedy over against stability in its absence. Does adversity facilitate change? Does change facilitate growth?

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

To many readers, there is no doubt a meaningful arc here, a story about one man dealing with his daughter's death and the best way to live his life after the fact, a searching for authenticity and happiness. Yet because I know the 'St Clair' in the text, know the real life people who pepper these pages, there is a deep disconnect for me between the Midwestern sections and those related to Italy - how the two come together, how the two meld into a whole is beyond my ken. I enjoyed the sections about Italy - while finding the protagonist a shallow, self-absorbed man packed to the gills with hubris - but never quite felt at ease with the whole product, with the narrative as one entity.

And if this is a glimpse into how men of the previous generation thought of / think of sex, color me unimpressed and vaguely weirded out.

[Kathleen Valentine · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is much to love about this book, Hellenga is a beautiful writer. His descriptions of Italy are lovely and his basic story was compelling. The problem for me was I never did warm up to the main character, Woody. He seemed like a self-indulgent, self-centered guy who was more interested in his wants and needs than in the lives of the people he encountered, especially his daughters.

I loved Hellenga's "The Sixteen Pleasures" and some of that magic lingered in the second half of the book but the story was a bit too rambling and Woody was to self-absorbed to make it as memorable as his previous book.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very interesting. I love anything about Italy, so I loved it. But there were distinct characteristics that screamed that this was written by a man. I've never read anything where the author's gender screamed itself so obviously. The ending... Very man. I'm still thinking of the various analogies that this ending might be implying.
Overall, I loved the dose of Italian and the shot of testosterone this book delivered. I could leave the academic snobbery that continually revealed itself in Part I, but by Part II it was much more muted.

[Suzanne Litrel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, haunting, lyrical, set in Rome and the United States. Opens with a haunting loss, and addresses big themes like life, death, love, redemption and forgiveness without ever being heavy-handed.

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a story of how a family is emotionally "blown a part" after their college age daughter is literally blown up in the train station bombing in Italy in the 80's. I wanted to strangle the main character "Woody" most of the time, but one copes in whatever way one can cope.

[Jess · Rating 1 out of 5]

For me to rate something this low is really saying something. I was very excited about this book but it definitely disappointed. You may not want to risk the disappointment.

[Jeanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like the religious overtones and the wife becoming a nun. I know the hero is a male pig in many ways, but he appeals to me nonetheless and this is one of my favorite books!

[Lynda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to give this book 4 stars but it just didn’t grab me the way I wanted it to. It’s a beautifully crafted book about loss and forgiveness. But I kept losing interest in the characters.

[Zoe]

I loved this book!

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book. I've been lingering in this world for several months now, and now that I'm finished reading, I'm sad to put it aside. The story was inspired by the bombing in a Bologna train station in 1980, but all characters are fictional. Professor Alan Woodhull, called "Woody," is a classics professor at a small college in Illinois. His eldest daughter, Cookie, was killed in the strage, or massacre, in which 85 other people were also killed. The tragedy upends their lives. The mother becomes a nun following a breakdown after her daughter's death; the other two daughters are also impacted as their family slowly falls apart. Woody tries to figure out how to live his life in the wake of losing his daughter, and slowly his neatly ordered life starts to fall apart as he has an affair with a student, the daughter of one of the college's biggest donors. After the political fallout, he leaves his job as a professor and goes to Italy to follow the trial of the terrorists, and to discover a new life, and love. It's impossible to do justice to the book with a mere summary; there is so much richness here. As a classics professor and a guitarist and singer, Woody often draws parallels between musical lyrics and classical literature. We interact with bats and the Illinois countryside and Persian carpets, and so much more. It is a deeply layered book, a palimpsest, much like the city of Rome, and like life itself.

[Eileen Granfors · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read THE FALL OF A SPARROW by Robert Hellenga when it first came out. I decided to reread it for something about Italy (Bologna and Rome). The walks through the cities, the foods, sights, sounds, smells are fascinating and rendered in detail.

I enjoyed the narrator, Woody, a classics professor. He is fluent in Greek, Latin, Persian, Italian, and English, my idol! He tells the story of his job and his classes. I really liked the focus and the detail of his classroom discussions of the ancient texts.

He is also a father of three daughters. One died in a terrorist bombing in Italy. His grief and the impact on the entire family are devastating, each family member choosing a route towards healing the unbearable wound, the loss of eldest daughter Cookie.

Memories of the family and memories of his youth intertwine with his current quest to find justice in Italy against the terrorists. Some chapters are narrated by his middle daughter, Sara, but these are not as compelling as her father's. She is smart and strong, but nowhere near as erudite (on purpose!)

A great read with too many old-man sex fantasies to earn a 5 start review from me.

[Lulu · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5, leaning on 4 since my uncertainty is perhaps an argument to experience it for yourself.

An emotionally complex nonlinear experience, that perhaps leaves more to be wanted and some to be cut.

It’s hard to describe this book, Ive attempted above, but part of me wants to say that the ambiguity arguably adds to emotional depth of it all. Hellenga makes a convincing argument that emotions cannot be categorized or put neatly on a spectrum, but are liquid layers that blend and become inseparable. I can’t think of many other novels that do this as successfully. At the same time, main characters are often lost to esoteric exposition while supporting characters lay flat, only to be unnecessarily slammed back to earth with tame but gratuitous sex. An imperfect book on imperfect progression.

[Allyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not the cover edition I read but it matters not to what was in between. Which was an incredible read, sad but also very thought provoking. I had objection to many things, plot devices, characters, the way the author unrolled his story, but the overall feeling both during and after the reading was very positive and my many criticisms seemed petty and insignificant.
I did not particularly identify or even care about any of the characters which makes it even more surprising I liked it as much as I did.

[Charles Cavazos · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have ambivalent feelings about this novel. On the one hand Hellenga is a gifted and imaginative writer. His storytelling skills are excellent. And yet I wasn't taken by any of they story's characters. In fact some behaved in that I would not have approved of had I been in the family. I admit that I have never experienced the loss of a young family member to violence and we might wonder what it is like for those who have. It's also true that stories need conflict, and some of these characters are very conflicted. There is personal growth, but it comes at more than the cost of one life.

[Alex McCusker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book enormously. The view of a family fracturing in the aftermath of a sudden death and the way each person deals with it is fascinating.
The topics covered are so wide-ranging, from cooking to weaving, and make every part a learning experience. The constant references to classical literature are equally interesting.
The principal character seems too complete a person to be true, this is perhaps the most off-putting thing for me.
This is my third readthrough and each time the story seems new and revealing.

[Fabiola Minda · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most important part is that I could feel.
This novel is about the grieving of a father, the dissolution of his family and the way he slowly finds his path again.
The most remarkable part is the sensation I had of walking with him throughout his transformation and rebirth. The author made me feel familiar with Woody, his journey, so much that I almost miss him now! lol

But seriously, I think Robert Hellenga made a great job here.

[Melanie Vidrine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually have not finished this book. Spoiler alert.....the guy is having a sexual relationship with a student (daughter of an old flame) while still grieving and constantly thinking about his own deceased eldest daughter. He willfully denies that this is harassment since she approached him. There is definitely a creepy factor, a narcissistic factor. The author writes beautifully and I enjoyed the references to classical literature. Maybe I will try another of his works.

[Izzy · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I'm so sad, because I really liked the first chapter of this book, and was ready for a novel about stories, life, family, and grief. Instead, once the perspective switched to Woody (the prologue is from the point of view of his daughter Sara), the book became about a creepy, sad, pretentious,, 50 year old professor who thinks about nothing but sex. Yes, even about his students. Even about his dead daughter. AT HER MEMORIAL SERVICE. Creepy and gross, had to stop.

[Em · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ik vond dit geen leuk boek. Er zitten stukken in over seksualiteit die ik ontzettend bizar vindt. De vader van de dochter die beschrijft hoe hij zich voor kan stellen hoe zij seks heeft met iemand... ook absurd vond ik de scene waarin de vader de vagina/ het schaamhaar van zijn dochter aanraakt wanneer zij in het ziekenhuis ligt. Deze momenten gaven het boek voor mij een hele nare nasmaak.

[Ried · Rating 1 out of 5]

just a shit man going through a mid life crisis using sex as a crutch, it only gets worse after he fucks an ex lovers daughter. also really misogynistic. and he’s weird (used christian imagery to depict his daughter having sex with a guy, it was really gross)

i wish i could give negative star reviews, but here we are.

not worth it!!!!!