Celle qui est revenue

by Donatella Di Pietrantonio

À treize ans, la narratrice apprend brutalement qu’elle n’est pas la fille de ceux qui l’ont élevée. Enfant unique, choyée, elle doit quitter la ville où elle a grandi pour être rendue à sa famille biologique. Dans son nouveau foyer, au village, il lui faut désormais partager une chambre et de maigres repas avec une sœur et quatre frères. Pauvreté, violence, usages, dialecte : tout, ici, lui est incompréhensible. « Orpheline de deux mères vivantes », elle ne sait plus qui elle est. Car, finalement, de qui est-on l’enfant ? Pourquoi ses parents adoptifs l’ont-ils abandonnée ? L’amour fraternel de Vincenzo et d’Adriana pourra-t-il dissiper ses doutes et sa détresse ?

Une histoire pétrie d’émotion et tenue par une écriture charnelle. Christine Ferniot, Télérama.

Sobre, dépourvu de pathos, ce récit, d’une certaine façon initiatique, captive et bouleverse. Delphine Peras, L’Express.

Une expérience brutale de perte des repères. Florence Courriol-Seita, Le Monde des livres.

Cet ouvrage a été précédemment publié aux éditions du Seuil en 2018 sous le titre La Revenue.

Traduit de l’italien par Nathalie Bauer.

Genres: Fiction, Italy, Italian Literature, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Family

224 pages, Pocket Book

First published February 14, 2017

About the author

Donatella was born and grew up in Arsita, a small village in the province of Teramo, and now lives in Penne where she practises as a paediatric dentist. From the age of nine she has been writing stories, fables, poems, and now novels. My Mother Is a River is her first novel. It was first published in Italy in 2011, where it won the Tropea and the John Fante literary prizes , and was translated into German in 2013. Her second book, Bella Mia, was published in 2014 and won the Brancati Prize.

(from http://www.calisipress.com/authors/vi...)

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘I was the arminuta, the one who was returned.’

I have just closed the final pages of A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio and let me tell you, I am feeling all the feelings. It is the story of a young girl who, for reasons unknown to her, is suddenly thrust out of her life in the city and returned to live with a rural family she discovers are actually her real parents. Set in 1975, the narrator reflects back 20 years later on her life with this family where slaps outweigh tenderness, life is harsh and the food is sparse, yet the bonds that form between her and her younger sister, Adriana, might be enough to make it all worthwhile. Winner of the Premio Campiello prize in Italy when it was published in 2017, here we can enjoy Di Pietrantonio’s direct and unadorned yet deeply affecting prose gorgeously translated into English by Ann Goldstein (best known for her work with Elena Ferrante). A Girl Returned is a heartbreakingly beautiful examination of kinship and class where sisterhood becomes a lifeline amidst betrayals and tragedies that culminate to an ending so emotionally charged it will leave you breathless.

‘I was too young, and propelled by the current, to see the river I’d been thrown into.’

Told in retrospect, this story chronicles the crushing physical and emotional abandonment felt by the narrator over a year and a half of her life. The set-up dumps her from the family that raised her as an only child to her birth parents, a working-class household with more children than they can readily feed. The circumstances are unknown to her at the time, with the big reveal of reasoning being an emotional gut-punch near the novel's conclusion, and the loving mother she has always known is replaced by her real mother with whom she has an icy relationship. There is a path to mutual respect and understanding, but it is fraught with disdain not helped by their completely different interactions with society. The narrator has been used to city life and is a huge academic success whereas her mother is not formally educated and is no stranger to hard labor and what it means to ‘earn what you eat.’ The narrator frequently refers to her aunt who raised her as ‘my mother’, keeping her birth mother at a distance both emotionally and linguistically by referring to her as ‘the mother.’

There is a social class divide that is thoroughly examined in the novel. The narrator is embarrassed that her family lacks the manners of higher class society, on several instances pointing out that her father or sister makes social faux pas by using the informal “you”, and recoils at their rural dialect. She wins government grants for academics and is frequently used as an example by her teacher to the other students to shame them for their lack of enthusiasm and success in academics. Yet when her younger sister can deliver a cutting insult to drive away bullies, it is the sister who says ‘If you want to stay, you’d better learn the right verbs for around here, too.’ There is also a lot of social class resentment in her family, with the birth mother making remarks about her cousin and ‘the comfortable life she has.’ The oldest son, Vincenzo, often runs off with the Romani, something seen as a mark of shame to his parents who frequently beat him for it, showing how even the lower classes will punch down at those beneath them the same way they resent the upper class for doing to them.

‘In time I lost that confused idea of normality, too, and today I really don’t know what place a mother is.’

As the narrator observes the growing silence between her and the family that raised her as well as the disconnect between her and her birth mother, she begins to feel she is ‘an orphan of two living mothers,’ and resents that, when she is to be sent to the city for school, everything is organized without her input in ‘the tomorrow that the two mothers had planned for me in my absence.’ This becomes a huge emotional burden, one that affects her own feelings of self-worth and emotional attachment in this world. She feels empty, abandoned, and alone without any say in her own life.

‘It’s absent from my life the way good health, shelter, certainty can be absent. It’s an enduring emptiness, which I know but can’t get past. My head whirls if I look inside it. A desolate landscape that keeps you from sleeping at night and constructs nightmares in the little sleep it allows. The only mother I never lost is the one of my fears.’

Her attachment issues are something already hindered even before she was given back when her favorite cousin Lidia, who had lived with them and acted as a sister, leaves and, after a long period of silence, shows up with her own child. The narrator sees how relations are transitory and reflects upon this while struggling to make connections with the family she has never known. The notion of transitory relationships has always been a theme that hits hard for me, having uprooted several times in life. I’ve never been good at keeping in touch but I love my friends all the same and I hope they know.

The heart of the story, and what truly makes this an overwhelmingly beautiful read, is the relationship that forms between her and her 10 year old sister, Adriana, a precocious child with a big heart and a ‘natural and bold unselfconsciousness.’ Adriana cares for her the way an older sister would, always checking to see if she is okay and standing up even to her parents on the narrator's behalf. Adriana is what makes the situation bearable, yet with the narrator’s attachment issues she finds she betrays her sister when breaking the promise to never be separated from her, passing on her own feelings of abandonment to the one she holds most dear. Her infant brother, Giuseppe, also becomes a close tie as the narrator cares for him in his complete inability to care for himself. There is a touching thread through the novel of caring for those who need it, and the examinations of kinship are a radiant message that truly steals the reader’s heart as she demonstrates lives intertwined beyond mere companionship but functioning to ensure the flourishing and well-being of one another.

This is contrasted, however, with Vincenzo who initially appears to be supportive and kind but not without an ulterior motive. He has an incestous lust for the narrator, and there are a few scenes where she is confused between regarding a situation as passion or sexual assault from her own brother. It is an early lesson that the kindness of men may have something darker behind it, yet Di Pietrantonio does well by making Vincenzo a very dynamic character that it is hard to not feel empathetic for at the same time. He has grown up in a difficult situation and has very few avenues available for him. What results is both tragic and also a sigh of relief as the narrator has likely escaped further abuse that she is uncertain how to process.

‘I was a child of separations, false or unspoken kinships, distances. I no longer knew who I came from. In my heart I don’t know even now.’

I can’t help but feel deeply moved and grateful for A Girl Returned, which comes at you so directly while encompassing your whole heart. It was interesting to read this not far removed from having read Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, a memoir dealing with difficult relationships between a mother that raised her and a birth mother, and I am so glad to have stumbled upon Luce’s extraordinary review that inspired me to immediately pick this up (definitely a good person to follow, I’ve never been led astray). The book is short, but lasting and reads at a fast pace that will grip you the whole way through. But mostly, A Girl Returned is painfully beautiful and does such an excellent job of exploring family ties, the importance and power of sisterhood, as well as the divisions instilled by social classes and it is one that will linger in my heart for a long time. The conclusion is simply stunning and delivers so much heart in such a succinct manner.

5/5

‘My sister. Like an improbable flower, growing in a clump of earth stuck in the rock. From her I learned resistance. We look less like each other now, but we find the same meaning in this being thrown into the world. In our alliance we survived.’

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 14-year old girl has a normal upbringing with a middle-class family in a small city on the coast of Italy. She had been adopted as an infant by a cousin of her biological mother. The cousin wanted a girl but couldn’t have children. Without any explanation she is suddenly uprooted, returned to her biological mother and father, and has no further contact with the parents who brought her up. No one will tell her anything. She writes letters to her old parents that are unanswered. Her new schoolmates taunt her by calling her “Arminuta” – the girl who was returned.



There’s a mystery to the story: why was she ‘returned’? Why won’t her old parents have contact with her, other than sending some money by mail to her new family?

She narrates the story. Obviously the girl is traumatized. She had been an only child and now she is in a household of seven, one of five children. Her new family has four other kids ranging from an 18-year old boy to a baby just starting to crawl. She makes friends with her younger sister. They sleep toes to head in the same bed, which her sister regularly wets at night.

She gets no welcome. All her father says is “You’re here.” She has to learn to protect her food from her brothers stealing it from her plate. Her mother makes her pluck and gut chickens, which she had never done before.

She is resentful of the mother who abandoned her. In her narration, she refers to them as “the mother in [the rural] town and the mother on the coast.” She can’t think of the new woman as her mother: “The word mamma had stuck in my throat like a frog that wouldn’t jump out.” In her new household no one even knows her birthday. She’s not going to tell anyone about it, so she celebrates it herself in a shed by buying a cupcake and a single candle.

Coming from her upbringing in a normal middle-class family, she is disgusted and at times overwhelmed by the disorder, the poor hygiene and the lack of etiquette. The only saving grace in the new household is her sister, whom she loves, and the mentally challenged baby that she helps take care of.



She visits her biological grandmother in a rural area. The ancient woman is a healer who casts (and uncasts) spells and makes herbal remedies. “They told me later that she had died once and remained dead for several days, but she couldn’t bear the solitude and had returned.”

A lot of the story is about class. She realizes money made her different. It’s not just the lack of money in her new household (some nights they just have broth and bread for a meal) but her biological parents’ poor education, their accent and their lack of proper grammar. She’s embarrassed when her mother meets her teacher. In one scene the main character and her sister go by bus to visit the family of a former friend of hers back in the city. The main character tells her sister: Speak Italian; use the formal ‘you’ when you talk to the adults; use the silverware - the only food you touch with your hands is the bread; chew with your mouth closed. Of course the girl can’t remember all this.

Her older brothers are a problem. The parents do little to discipline the boys, so she has to fend for herself. A family tragedy saves her from what would have likely been an incestuous relationship with the oldest brother. The mother becomes incapacitated by grief. The other brother simply hates her, harasses her, wrecks her stuff and steals her food. You can’t call it love, but we watch a begrudging acceptance develop between the girl and her mother.



The story is structured as if she were writing a memoir about twenty years later, so occasionally we know what happened to the characters, such as the baby, later in life. It’s a short book, so the 33 chapters are very brief. With some dialog, it moves along quickly, and the fast-paced story keeps your attention. This novel, the author’s third, won Italy’s Campiello Prize.

Top photo, Grottaferrata, a small city near Rome from st2.depositphotos.com
A rural Italian village from media.gannett-cdn.com
The author from huffingtonpost.com

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounding up
The girl is sent from a comfortable life with parents who weren’t really hers and returned to the family that was hers by blood, to a home very different from the one in which she was raised, a home of dysfunction and discomfort, where slaps were plentiful but not food. She is sent back without knowing why and the truth is not known to her until close to the end. It’s not difficult to feel her heartbreak and confusion, sense of loss and identity. The unnamed narrator was 13 years old when she was returned and is telling her story twenty years later. She’s a stranger, an outsider except to her younger sister, Adriana and older brother, Vincenzo. It seemed impossible to forge bonds at first, but that was before Adriana and her baby brother Giuseppe loved her. This is a short book, so I won’t go further into plot details. The most beautiful thing about the story is the relationship that grows between the girl and her younger sister, Adriana. While this is the girl’s story, Adriana is a shining light in the days that felt so dark to this girl. This precocious ten year old, funny and smart and wise for her age made me feel as if it was just as much her story.

There are times when not naming a character might make sense, the author perhaps wanting the character to represent everyone, but these were not circumstances that felt universal. Perhaps having no name might signify her loss of identity, loss of a sense of belonging. However, I prefer a character like this girl to have a name. Just me maybe. but I would have given it 5 stars if I knew her name. (Revised my rating since
its a day later and I’m still thinking about this book so I have to round it up even though I want to know her name ).
It’s beautifully written and translated. A short book, but it is filled with emotion that left me with that lump in my throat on numerous occasions. I can understand why this has won awards.



I received an advanced copy of this book from Europa Editions through Edelweiss.

[Sujoya - theoverbookedbibliophile · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

On an August afternoon in 1975, a thirteen-year-old girl (our narrator) drags a suitcase up the stairs to an apartment belonging to her biological parents. She is 'returned' to her family by her adoptive parents, the only family she has ever known and whom she believed to be her true parents. This family, this apartment just a bus ride away from her seaside home and her new siblings are all alien to her. This family is related to her adoptive father and she was adopted by Signora Adalgisa when she was an infant of six months – an arrangement mutually agreed upon by both sets of parents. The circumstances surrounding her 'return' remain a mystery to her. She worries for the health of her adoptive mother. Is she sick? Is she even alive? Will she ever return to the safe, happy cocoon that was once her home? She is thrust into a life completely different from the one she was accustomed to -an only child, living in a seaside community with loving parents, friends, dance classes and wanting for nothing. Here she becomes part of a dysfunctional family plagued by poverty and abusive dynamics within. Her parents mostly ignore her with her mother expecting her to be well versed in household chores including plucking a chicken, her older brothers taunt and bully her except for the eighteen-year-old Vincenzo whose interest in her leads to some uncomfortable moments.

“I wasn’t acquainted with hunger and I lived like a foreigner among the hungry. The privilege I bore from my earlier life distinguished me, isolated me in the family. I was the arminuta, the one who’d returned. I spoke another language and I no longer knew who I belonged to.”

Adriana, her younger sister and Guiseppe, her youngest brother who has a developmental disability are the only two people she connects with, a connection that continues into her adulthood, details of which she gives brief glimpses of as she narrates these incidents from a timeline twenty year in the future. She shares how she is unable to connect with her “parents”- a disconnect that continues throughout her narrative referring to them as “the mother” and “the father”. When tragedy strikes the family “the mother” retreats into herself further.

“In time I lost that confused idea of normality, too, and today I really don’t know what place a mother is. It’s absent from my life the way good health, shelter, certainty can be absent. It’s an enduring emptiness, which I know but can’t get past. My head whirls if I look inside it. A desolate landscape that keeps you from sleeping at night and constructs nightmares in the little sleep it allows. The only mother I never lost is the one of my fears.”

As the story progresses and the reasons for her abandonment by her adoptive mother are revealed, her world is once again turned upside down and our protagonist is compelled to question the very definition of motherhood and family. The protagonist’s loneliness, confusion and inner turmoil in her darkest moments are palpable and will break your heart.

A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio (translated by Ann Goldstein), is a sad, moving and powerful novel that explores the themes of family, coming-of-age, trust, abandonment and resilience. The author’s strength lies in her characterizations and the realistic depiction of complex relationships.

A character that stands out in our narrator's story is Adriana, her younger sister. Accustomed to the hardships of life and the abusive environment in their home, Adriana, only ten years old and still wetting the bed welcomes her older sister, is both protective and possessive of her at school and at home, even willing to take the blows directed towards her by their mother in moments of rage. Initially, our narrator is embarrassed by her sister’s lack of fine manners, her shabby appearance and her rustic diction and there are moments of friction and resentment from Adriana’s side as well but as time progresses she becomes the only person our protagonist can truly rely on, her only light in the darkness.

“My sister. Like an improbable flower, growing in a clump of earth stuck in the rock. From her I learned resistance. We look less like each other now, but we find the same meaning in this being thrown into the world. In our alliance we survived.”

The writing is unambiguous and elegant and the narrative is sharp and well-paced, laced with real emotions without exaggeration or melodrama with its share of memorable characters (some likable and some not so much) - all of which render this a compelling read. This is a short novel and I felt invested in the lives of our narrator and her sister Adriana. I wanted to know more about their lives. In other words, I did not want the story to end. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time. I look forward to reading more of Donatella Di Pietrantonio’s work in the future.

(Readers should note that Vincenzo’s behavior towards the protagonist borders on incestuous, which may upset some readers, though this angle is not developed beyond a certain point in the story and thankfully, does not feature as a running theme but is used to depict one of the dysfunctional situations the protagonist is exposed to in her new home.)

[Ilenia Zodiaco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un romanzo scritto in maniera solida, una storia bellissima e potente. Unica pecca: troppo dipendente da modelli di scrittura già consolidati come la Morante e la Ferrante che smaccano un po’ l’originalità del libro.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update....THE REVIEW...... ( Sunday morning - Sunshine in Northern California)

The year was 1975. A small town in Italy.
Yet.....this story is being told 20 years later....looking back on a childhood. It’s a thin quiet introspective novel. Very heartfelt story.

She was thirteen. We never learn her name.
She didn’t know her other mother, the mother who conceived her.
A distant uncle dropped the girl off with her biological mother and their family. The uncle explained that they - he and his wife, Adalgisa- ( the only mother she knew for thirteen years - minus the first two years of her life), can’t keep her anymore, and it would be fun living in a house with lots of kids.

She had been an only child with the uncle and his wife. As the only parents she knew...the girl was happy with them. Comforts of home, security, food, clothes, supported activities, friends, community, school, feelings of safety, and abundance of needs were met. Love flourished between the girl and the only mother she knew.

So why was the girl returned to her birth mother? Why did the birth mother give her away in the first place? The reader is not told many details about either of the two mothers. Instead we get suggestive details - and eventually more specific facts, but not everything, leaving the reader to contemplate the roles - behaviors and actions from all the adults....
but this story really belongs to ‘the girl’.....
The story she most wanted to tell was her experience about being ‘returned’....about the new family she lived with....(a shocking contrast from her old life), about her siblings...about the poverty...about the scarcity for food, money, hygiene supplies, solitary privacy, about the family relations and housing dynamics.....
her loneliness, sadness, suppression, school, her teacher, about her one close friend, Patrizia, from her old life, with special emphasis about her younger sister, Adriana....( whom she became very close), and the older 18 year old sibling, named Vincenzo. ( who she tried to distant herself and desires)....whom with later a tragic event takes place.

The girl and younger sister, Adriana, by 3 years, shared sleeping in the same tight bed. Adriana wet the bed regularly. The mattress was constantly soaked with urination.
The girls slept in the same room with the 15 and 18 year old brothers.
My heart sank imagining the living conditions.
But the girl takes special care to love and protect Adriana. Adriana idolizes the girl.
Truth is they begin to idolize each other. ( for different reasons....but it’s the most beautiful relationship).
The girl tells Adriana about her past life - walking along the sea...eating a variety of delicious flavors of ice creams-( all foreign to Adriana) ...and about her old city life which was only about 50 kilometers from their house.

Throughout this story...the girl keeps trying to figure out why her mother sent her away. Because she was sick? Was she dead? etc?
The girl even wrote a letter asking to come back home. She told her mother or Aunt... that everyone in the family saw her as an annoyance, a nuisance. [ not everyone REALLY]....Adriana adored her.

Sergio, one of the brothers could be cruel....as it was his basic personality...tough guy bully type...who was basically equally mean to everyone. Vincenzo wasn’t cruel to the girl....but he was ‘potentially’ dangerous sexually.

There are a couple of adventure days...taking the bus back to the girls old house
....which looked abandoned...

Giuseppe was the baby. One day....the girl and Adriana were to watch the baby while the mother visited someone in the countryside stocking up fruit for jams.
Well....that scene brought tears to my eyes. Let’s just say....it was a HARD DAY!!!!
But when later - once Giuseppe was as asleep next to her own body....the girl said...
“I don’t think I’d ever felt the pleasure of such intimacy with any creature”.

Later the girls were scolded when the mother returned because some chores never got done. I had to set the book down and walk away at that point for a half hour.
Given what those CHILDREN went through that day - only to be scolded later .... we’ll, my emotions ‘ached’.

I really liked the combination of the smooth and stark writing. I loved getting to know the characters.

So much lifelike quality in the everyday details. I found the writing to be both compassionate and merciless. I REALLY LIKED THIS SLIM SIZE NOVEL!

Thank You, Europa Editions, Netgalley, and author Donatello Di Pietrantonio



A DAY BEFORE I WROTE THE ABOVE REVIEW
Review in a day or two. Just finished this small Europa book...
It was sad ...but I loved the main character - and couple of the supporting characters very much.
Loved the gorgeous stark writing -
....the feelings - the mysterious edge -
Small tears twice...( once over a scene with a baby)... it broke my heart!!!

I still want to think about this longer before I write more.

I just finished it here at The Korean Spa ( great relaxing day)...
Going to go home to connect with my husband ..
But I’m still sooo inside this Europa Novel.

I have a ‘thing’ for Europa books!

Happy weekend all you lovely readers!!!!! 📚💕📚💕

[piperitapitta · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Ero l'Arminuta, la ritornata. Parlavo un'altra lingua e non sapevo più a chi appartenere. La parola mamma si era annidata nella mia gola come un rospo. Oggi davvero ignoro che luogo sia una madre. Mi manca come può mancare la salute, un riparo, una certezza»

Non ha ancora quattordici anni quando il padre la riporta nel paesino abruzzese dell'entroterra in cui è nata.
È appena stata separata con forza dalla madre, dalla sua casa e dall'ambiente in cui è cresciuta fin dalla nascita, e le è stato rivelato che i suoi genitori non sono quelli che ha sempre creduto, ma i suoi zii. Che la città e l'ambiente borghese in cui è stata cresciuta - la scuola di danza, la piscina, la casa, al mare, i vestiti, la scuola media che frequenta - non sono quelli in cui era nata.
Lei è nata lì, in quella famiglia povera, piena di fratelli e di una sorella, quella famiglia i cui genitori - i suoi - le fanno quasi ribrezzo a causa della loro ignoranza, sporcizia, povertà.
E ora è ritornata, senza sapere nemmeno perché, suo padre l'ha presa e riportata depositandola come un pacco, dicendole che è lì che deve stare, con la sua famiglia: quella vera.
La ritornata, l'Arminuta, come la chiamano in paese i compagni di scuola, perché anche se a lei è stato detto che erano stati i genitori a rivolerla indietro, i coetanei si sa, spesso sono impietosi e di una ferita, di una diversità, di un pettegolezzo, sono capaci di farne derisione, emarginazione, sfottò.

La storia dell'Arminuta, che nel romanzo non avrà mai nome - a indicare la perdita di un'identità e di un'appartenenza fino a quel momento certe, ma poi capaci di dissolversi di fronte a una rivelazione, e a un gesto, capace di annientare la seppur breve esistenza pregressa - è quella del suo ritorno, del suo disagio, della malcelata volontà di ambientarsi e trapiantarsi - questa volta scientemente - nella sua famiglia di origine.
È la storia, principalmente, del confronto fra due madri, quella naturale e quella adottiva, di due madri che, in maniera diversa l'una dall'altra, melliflua e sfuggente l'una, grossolana e ruvida l'altra, l'hanno voluta e poi abbandonata, amata e poi tradita.
Ma è anche la storia, e qui il romanzo è senz'altro di formazione, del percorso di crescita, soprattutto interiore, che l'Arminuta fa per accettare la sua nuova famiglia, per accettare se stessa - così diversa, perché "educata" in tutti i sensi, dalla famiglia e dalla scuola, e perciò diversa dagli altri perché dotata di capacità cognitive e di cultura, seppur scolastica - e per farsi accettare dagli altri che ha discriminato e da cui è stata discriminata.
Infine è la storia, struggente, del rapporto, atipico, che instaura con la sorella Adriana: più piccola, ruspante, genuina; ma anche tenace e determinata, che si lega a lei, unica altra femmina, con un legame che diventa subito viscerale, carnale, complice.

Donatella Di Pietrantonio, che non mi aveva affatto convinta con l'opera prima "Mia madre è un fiume" proprio a causa dello stile, troppo artificioso e visibilmente ricercato, qui mi ha letteralmente travolta: rinunciando a ricercatezze stilistiche fini a se stesse e a barocchismi impervi, denuda la lingua e la riduce all'essenziale, funzionale, per colpire attraverso la storia e alla descrizione, momento dopo momento, della trasformazione emotiva dell'Arminuta: è poco più di una bambina spaurita quando arriva in paese alla fine della scuola a ridosso dei mesi estivi, è poco meno di una donna quando l'estate è finita.
A raccontarci la sua storia è un'Arminuta adulta, poco meno che quarantenne, ma l'adulta scompare quasi subito, fra le righe della sua storia, per lasciare spazio alla tredicenne di allora.
Bello, coinvolgente, emozionante: uno di quei romanzi che si divorano in pochi giorni e che poi restano lì, per molto più tempo, a farsi spazio nella mente.

«Ci siamo fermate una di fronte all'altra, così sole e vicine, io immersa fino al petto e lei al collo. Mia sorella.
Come un fiore improbabile, cresciuto su un piccolo grumo di terra attaccato alla roccia. Da lei ho appreso la resistenza.
Ora ci somigliamo meno nei tratti, ma è lo stesso il senso che troviamo in questo essere gettate nel mondo. Nella complicità ci siamo salvate.
Ci guardavamo sopra il tremolio leggero della superficie, i riflessi accecanti del sole. Alle nostre spalle il limite acque sicure. Stringendo un poco le palpebre l'ho presa prigioniera tra le ciglia.»

[Jennifer nyc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Updating this to a solid 5 stars, as I keep thinking about it, recommending it, gifting it. If this book keeps resonating for me, it may make it to my favorites list.

*

Many of us still carry an event that broke us open, that created and destroyed us all at once. This is a story about that event for a girl, unnamed perhaps because she is all of us, or because she’s still figuring out how to put herself back together. In her drive to understand, she gives full respect to her pain, and the beauty forged from it.

Our girl is 13, and before the story, life goes along much like it does for any girl she knows. She has a mother and a father and a best friend. She does well in school and enjoys ballet lessons. She has no idea that she was born to another family living a parallel life across the city. One day, her father takes her in his car and drops her off at a new address - the address of her “real home” with her “real family.” She goes from only child to sharing a bed with her sister in a bedroom with 3 older brothers, and in a home with parents she never knew. She doesn’t even get to say goodbye to her mother, doesn’t even know if she’s alive. That’s how this story begins.

The question, “why was the girl returned to her birth family,” drives the action forward until it’s replaced by “will she - and therefore, we - ever find out why?”
But the simple question also provides space for lots to happen around it, fully immersing us in her new life in the 1970s, in a city near Rome. The gorgeous, interior language, the emotional authenticity, the aliveness of the characters and their relationships, all had me savoring this work while also hungering to know what happens next.

The girl is called L’arminuta, the returned one. We see and feel with her. What she accepts without understanding, what she learns without accepting, and how she absorbs and shares information, all feel authentic. She’s exposed for the first time to baser feelings, like lust and rage, hunger and survival. She finds an ally in her younger sister, Adriana, who is wise beyond her years and navigates her world with strength and dignity. She introduces Adriana to another way of life, too - to privilege that fills bellies, and dreams of escape. She gives Adriana everything she can. And Adriana can’t help but protect L’arminuta from violence and debasement - she wants her untarnished, just the way she arrived.
 
The only issue I had was with the story’s glimpses into the future. I felt the point of the story could NOT be made without these glimpses, yet it made me miss what wasn’t said from the adult perspective. The message seemed to be that we never really recover from these traumas, but that they are so integral to who we become that to wish them away would also be to lose all their gifts. The gift here for our girl was the lasting relationship with her sister. The future reassures us of this, while also admitting that the pain will never go away.

It turns out that there’s a sequel to this called A Sister’s Story. I enjoyed reading and discussing this moving and personal book with Lisa, and because the story left us both wanting more, we read the sequel together as well.

Here are Lisa’s reviews:

A Girl Returned:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A Sister’s Story:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Here's my review of its sister book:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[JimZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars bumped up to 5 stars resulting in the last two books I have read rated as 5-star material. 😲 Gadzooks!

I read this because as per usual a Goodreads friend liked it a lot and I liked that person’s review so I put it on my TBR list. Which brings to mind this: I am not sure I have ever read a review in which the person said that what they read was from their TBR list. Which also brings to mind this: in what format do you keep your TBR list? Let me know….I am curious about other reader’s habits. 🧐

I keep my TBR list in an Excel spreadsheet. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I go on Goodreads more often than not with a cup of coffee by my side, and a sheet of paper. So I read reviews and will write down books that I want to put on my TBR list on the piece of paper, and there lies the piece of paper until I fill it up and then I transfer the info (i.e., name of book, author, who recommended it and how many stars) to my Excel file — when I have nothing else to do. So then — when I have nothing else to do — I go to my local library website and figure out if it has the book from my TBR list. If so, I note that. If not I put a ‘NL’ for ‘not listed’ in an Excel column. And I proceed from there…eventually ordering it from the library or online. After having read it or at least procured it, I then highlight that entry — when I have nothing else to do — as a flag to me later on to not order this book, in that I have already gotten it. I have to do this because of my memory sieve…into my cerebral cortex and for some inexplicable reason after 3 months or so, out into the stratosphere. As if I never read the book. Go figure. 😐

But — back to the review. Sorry for that detour. This to me was a sort of coming-of-age work by the author. I liked the structure of the short novel (170 pages)…chapters were about 5 pages. So that means that whatever point was being made or whatever event occurred was not explained ad nauseum. This also reminded me after I was done as YA-type material…I wonder if any other reviewers classified it as such.

Setting is a small town in Italy, 1975 to 1977.A girl at age 13 is given up by a woman she thought was her mother to another woman and her family who are presented as that – her real family. Imagine being yanked out of your home one fine day and sent off to another home to live in. Sort of like riches to rags too in that the girl was used to the finer things in life and now she’s transferred to an impoverished situation where she has to share a bed with her sister who wets it every night.

The story takes place over about a 1-year period…begins when she is 13 and ends when she is 14. Does a lot happen in that year? Aside from the seismic shift of the initial move, and aside from what happens to a brother, not a whole lot. That doesn’t the mean that the protagonist or new family remain unchanged over that time period.

While reading this, I had something I wanted to do extraneous to the book. But I liked the book so much and was so engrossed in it, that I forsook whatever it was I had wanted to do, because what I REALLY wanted was to read the book and find out what happened next. The writer had me in her clutches. 🙃

You know, the main protagonist in this novel wanted to know what happened to her ‘real’ mother…was she deathly ill when she gave her up and is she dead now? Whether that is revealed or not in the novel you shall have to find out for yourself. 🙃

I thought the writing was spot-on. And some passages and sentences were so beautiful I wrote them down.
She gets to visit a friend in her former town where she lived…it is near the sea and at the end of the visit there is this:
• As we said goodbye a sob escaped me: I couldn’t muffle it. I would have preferred to drown in the blue that was thirty meters of sand from the sidewalk.
And this:
• The teacher returned my Latin homework with a nine on the back of the sheet of foolscap, and, after a moment of joy, I felt lost as I looked at it lying on my desk. My mother would indeed have been pleased, if she could have seen it. She still worried about me, albeit from a distance, more than she worried about her illness: I refused to stop believing that. And yet, in certain melancholy moods, I felt forgotten. I’d fallen out of her thoughts. There was no longer any reason to exist in the world. I softly repeated the word mamma a hundred times, until it lost all meaning and was only an exercise on my lips. I was an orphan with two living mothers. One had given me up with her milk still on my tongue, the other had given me back at the age of thirteen. I was a child of separations, false or unspoken kinships, distance. I no longer knew who I came from. In my heart I don’t even know now.

And the final sentences were beautiful and evocative. She is back in the sea with her little sister, Adriana:
• We looked at each other over the lightly tremulous surface, the dazzling reflection of the sun. Behind us the safe-water boundary. Squeezing my eyelids just a little I imprisoned her between the lashes.
That last sentence. How the hell did she write that! I’ve done that with my eyelids but never thought about it that way.

Kudos to this author. This is her first novel translated into English…she has two others. This translation was done by the person who translated Elena Ferrante’s Neopolitan novels [My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child].

Notes:
• Winner of the Campiello Prize and a Publishers Weekly Best Summer Read
• Her novel, Bella mia, was nominated for the Strega Prize and won the Brancati Prize.

Reviews:
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• https://www.thegazette.com/subject/li...
• https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/all...

This is really good, from Natalia Holtzman from the Minnesota Star Tribune: It is an achingly beautiful book, and an utterly devastating one ... Di Pietrantonio writes with deceptive simplicity. Every scene—every detail—is as meticulously rendered as a grain of sand. There is no sentimentality here, no excess at all, but delicacy of feeling, and depth ... But for all its anguish, the novel is never despairing or bleak. The characters are so precisely drawn, they seem to actually breathe. There is humor here, and sympathy to go around. Now, especially, we would do well to consider the plight of children who are roughly separated from the lives they have known.

[Baba Yaga Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Il sentimento preponderante, dopo aver voltato l'ultima pagina dell'Arminuta, è la frustrazione. Frustrazione legata non ai contenuti e alla vicenda del libro, ma piuttosto ad un generale senso di déjà vu che ha accompagnato la mia esperienza di lettura. Quello di Donatella di Pietrantonio non è un brutto romanzo: la trama fila, i personaggi sono credibili, e, fatta eccezione per qualche frase da melodramma e certi dialoghi che sembrano scritti da chi non ha mai assistito a una conversazione tra esseri umani, anche la scrittura è abbastanza buona.

Il vero problema è un altro: dalla prima all'ultima riga, questo libro pare studiato a tavolino per cavalcare il successo dell'Amica Geniale. Ci prova lo stile, che vorrebbe essere diretto e immediato come quello della Ferrante (con tanto di rimandi dialettali che fanno tanto borgata di una volta); ci prova l'ambientazione, un paesello abruzzese degli anni '70 che tenta disperatamente di emulare il degrado della Napoli del dopoguerra (e quando non ci riesce rimedia inserendo patetiche sottotrame a tema incestuoso); ci provano le protagoniste, chiaramente disegnate per riportare alla mente Elena e Lila.

Quello che manca, in questo romanzo, è la genuinità. Il racconto della Ferrante ha la violenza ferina di una storia vissuta sulla propria pelle, il ritmo ipnotico e incalzante della tragedia nascosta sotto il velo del quotidiano: quanti di noi, leggendo L'Amica Geniale, hanno pensato che si trattasse di una vicenda autobiografica? Ebbene, L'Arminuta non conserva nulla di quest'urgenza narrativa. È una storia confezionata su misura, cambiando un po' l'originale come si fa con un cappotto rivoltato per farlo sembrare nuovo. E la cosa peggiore è che, a giudicare dal successo ottenuto, questa formula funziona.

TW: incesto, violenza domestica

[Pietrino · Rating 3 out of 5]

«Nome?»
«Pietro»
«Sul foglio c'è scritto Pietrino»
«Va bene, allora Pietrino»
«Cosa hai combinato stavolta?»
«Io? No, niente.»
«Hai parlato di nuovo male di qualche libro super blasonato, dì la verità. Magari di un candidato al Premio Strega. Pietrino c'hai trent'anni quasi, la vuoi finire? E per l'amor di Dio, vuoi cambiare il format delle recensioni? Non ci crede nessuno a quei finti aneddoti in cui incastri le trame dei libri»
«Commissario, io veramente ho sempre detto la verità»
«Se vabbè, come no. Ma che cosa devo fare con te? Ogni Lunedì è sempre la stessa storia con la tua recensione che mi fai impazzire gli utenti.»
«Vabbè dai, non tutti. E comunque oggi è Mercoledì.»
«Ah, diavolo.»
«Quindi posso andare?»
«Pietrino..»
«Sì?»
«Trent'anni. Tren-ta. Non mi fare cazzate politiche. Tren-ta.»
«Ci vediamo!»

In questo libro abbiamo una storia semplice. Canonica tranne un pezzo. Una bambina viene data in affidamento ad un'altra famiglia mentre è appena nata. La famiglia affidataria è imparentata con la vera famiglia della bambina. E ad una certa la nuova famiglia la riporta indietro. Così, come un pacco. Per cui la bambina, che inizia presto a capire cosa sta succedendo, si ritrova a vivere in questa nuova famiglia, che il realtà è la sua vera famiglia.

Non ci state capendo un cazzo? Tranquilli, sono io che sono un cane.

La vera famiglia della bambina, quella in cui viene appunto riportata, è una famiglia povera. E la povertà ci arriva addosso con uno stile di scrittura aspro, spigoloso, che enfatizza quello che la povera bambina pensa e si ritrova a subire in mezzo a tutti quei fratelli ognuno con la propria storia. Il dolore di arrivare a fine giornata per il pane, e non a fine mese per pagarsi la macchina, ci viene sbattuto in faccia e non è possibile non sciogliersi. Il punto di vista della bambina osservando la ricca famiglia che l'ha abbandonata diventa il nostro tanto che finiamo per trovarci lì con la sua famiglia a star stretti e a mangiare molto meno di quanto dovremmo. Emotivamente molto forte e le 160 pagine diventano 300, nel senso buono s'intende.

Il fatto è che non sono stato soddisfatto dallo svolgimento della storia. C'era più roba da dire, più cose che avrei voluto si sviluppassero, per cui sono rimasto un po' così. Bene per la durezza di certe passaggi, male per la banalità di quello che la storia mi ha lasciato. Ho visto dei voti altissimi, ma io a quattro stelle non ci arrivo, mi spiace.
Adesso però scusatemi, vi devo lasciare che mi sta suonando il telefono.

Merda, sarà mica il Commissario?

Peace Off

[Marcello S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Regà, che vi devo dire. Temevo che no e invece è davvero niente male.
Amanti d'Elena Ferrante, accorrete. [75/100]

[Ines · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I was the Arminuta, the girl returned. I spoke another language, I no longer knew who I belonged to. The word ‘mama’ stuck in my throat like a toad. And, nowadays, I really have no idea what kind of place mother is. It is not mine in the way one might have good health, a safe place, certainty.”

I finished a few hours ago to read this book, read it exactly in a day, and it is there nailed in my mind...... I remember very well when it came out in Italy and the many heated discussions that followed, both on TV and online.... the various factions of those who praised the work and those who blamed or belittled the Di Pietrantonio, with jokes like " the new VERISTA of the 21th century" as if it were a fault to see herself side by side with a great like Giovanni Verga or even Ignazio silone ( even if it seems to me an unbelievable comparison!!) I bought the book immediately, but for some strange reason, sorry not strange, my pathological mistrust of the Italian contemporary authors,..... I immediately put it in my living room's bookshelf and completely forgot to read it...
I am not here to give you the summary or to rewrite the synopsis of this book, because it is easily readable above in the worksheet...
L' Arminuta ( dialect term for a girl returned), this child who can never receive a name and her sister Adriana, enters your heart, you would like to enter into the book to save them from this destiny of melancholy incorporated by scars of emotional violence, unfortunately for the last girl also physical too.
The decision of Adalgisa, adoptive mother, will devastate the destiny and life not only of these two girls, but of a whole family, the origin one of the Arminuta... to which a daughter will be taken and then reported as a package for a truth to be kept deeply hidden...
The writing of Di pietrantonio is magnificent, it flows so well that from the first page it gives you in your mind, just like a clear and simple movie this world, that flows on two dimensions... that abandoned by the protagonist, a reality made of possibilities, serenity and wealth, until you find next to that the rustic world, concrete and crude... of a place, which could be millions of places, a province, a countryside that could be and be repeated everywhere, that world of pain and effort to "survive" to a daily life of poverty, misery and deprivation.
The welcome place of the returned will be a poor house, dirty... and this is where the returned will immediately have to reckon with her feeling betrayed, with the daily awareness of not belonging to the world of ignorance in which it finds itself catapulted. Her beating pain of a wounded and betrayed love will never leave her. It must therefore immediately find a chance to survive with her family of the origin, a rough mother, direct and incapable of tenderness towards his children, if not for the little Giuseppe... to the incomprehensible hatred of Sergio but also from a small and ever increasing love of little Adriana...
It is this innocent little soul that will save our "Arminuta" from this world of despair, a girl of 8 years old but already a "woman in knowing" and knowing how to relate and how to make a living in the household and relationships, often corrupt of malice, in the world of the village of Abruzzo where they live. It is precisely this relationship of love and reciprocal adoration that will save these two children, one from the acceptance of this broken and abandoned family, and the other from a world of misery where there is no tenderness innocence and love for "le creature " ( kids in dialect).
A condition that assaults you like anxiety at night, I wonder how it is possible that it happens in the mid-1970s!
In complicity we are saved and it is this phrase that turns in my soul, salvation comes from this ability to be together, loving each other, as to make up for the dryness of what has never been given....
I’m also very impressed by the precise moment when " l' Arminuta" remembers the day she went
to take her Middle School Diploma, that hand of her biological mother resting on her shoulder, that one carnal gesture that is reported and remembered as if it were a "Thought relic" by this child.
It’s a book to read, definitely and absolutely not easy to review..... there would be to write a further book about the two-dimensional realities, one where life and dialogues take place in Italian, the other, the poor and provincial.... all the dialogues are written in simple Abruzzese dialect, the pain of Vincenzo’s death and the destruction of what little emotional remains of these boys' mother, the possibility of redemption thanks to the help of the Perilli teacher, the one who insists, threating the mother, for continuing our little girl’s studies...
The story initially is narrated by an adult "Arminuta", who remembers together with an adult Adriana, that past of extreme pain, of absence of truth.
for those who have read or will read the book in the English version:

I would like to read as soon as possible the english version, i just wonder how the "bravissima"Ann Goldstein, the traslator, has been able to translate and to let the english readers understand the two dimensional languages... the italian one, spoken by the adoptive family and in the city life , and the original family using dialect only..... Di Pietrantonio wrote the dialogues using dialect only, and it is by far the opposite with Elena Ferrante's works....i think this book could have been a real " pain" for Golstein to translate, and how to translate it. There are even many products that are reported with their commercial names, these products are still on the market from 60 years and still eaten or used by italian, these are symbols for us, like "Buondì" a little snack, like you have in the US as Hostess products...( ours are a little bit healthier 😉😊😊) how does Goldstein let you understand that the Buondì is not just a piece of cake, but a symbol for all the italian kids during school time!?? it is still eaten nowadays for breakfast of during school's recreations by all of our kids!!!









«Ero l'Arminuta, la ritornata. Parlavo un'altra lingua e non sapevo più a chi appartenere. La parola mamma si era annidata nella mia gola come un rospo. Oggi davvero ignoro che luogo sia una madre. Mi manca come può mancare la salute, un riparo, una certezza»
Ho finito da qualche ora di leggere questo libro, letto esattamente in un giorno, ed è lì inchiodato nella mia mente...... mi ricordo benissimo quando uscì in Italia e le tantissime discussioni accese che ne seguirono, sia in Tv che online..... le varie fazioni di chi elogiava l'opera e di chi incolpava o sminuiva la di Pietrantonio, con battutine tipo " la nuova Verista degli anni 2000" come se fosse una colpa vedersi affiancata a un grande come Giovanni Verga o addirittura ad Ignazio Silone ( anche se mi sembra un paragone non credibile!!) Comprai subito il libro, ma per qualche strano motivo, scusate non strano, la mia patologica diffidenza rispetto agli autori italiani contemporanei,..... lo misi immediatamente in libreria dimenticandomi completamente di leggerlo....
non sto qui a farvi il riassunto o a riscrivere la sinossi di questo libro, perchè facilmente leggibile qui sopra nella scheda dell'opera......
l'Arminuta, questa bimba che mai potrà ricevere un nome e sua sorella Adriana, ti entrano nel cuore, vorresti entrarci tu lettore nel libro a salvarle da questo destino di malinconia incorporato da cicatrici di violenza emotiva e purtroppo per l'ultima bimba anche fisica.
La decisione di Adalgisa, pseudo mamma adottiva, devasterà il destino e la vita non solo di queste due bambine, ma di una intera famiglia, quella di origine dell' Arminuta... a cui verrà sottratta una figlia e poi riportata come un pacco per una verità da tenere profondamente nascosta...
La scrittura della Di Pietrantonio è magnifica, scorre così bene che sin dalla prima pagina ti dona davanti agli occhi, proprio come un film chiaro e semplice, questo mondo che scorre su due dimensioni....quello abbandonato dalla protagonista, una realtà fatta di possibilità, serenità e ricchezza, sino a trovare di fianco quel mondo rustico, concreto e rozzo.... di un luogo, che potrebbe essere milioni di luoghi, una provincia, una campagna che potrebbe essere e ripetersi ovunque, quel mondo di dolore e fatica per" sopravvivere"ad una vita quotidiana di povertà, miseria e privazioni.
Il luogo di accoglienza della ritornata sarà una casa spartana, sporca... ed è qui che la ritornata dovrà da subito fare i conti con il suo sentirsi tradita, con la quotidiana consapevolezza di una non appartenenza al mondo di ignoranza in cui si ritrova catapultata. Il suo dolore pulsante di un amore ferito e tradito non l'abbandonerà mai..... dovrà quindi da subito trovare una possibilità di sopravvivere con la sua famiglia di origine, una mamma ruvida, diretta e incapace di tenerezza nei confronti dei figli, se non per il piccolo Giuseppe......alla diffidenza di Vincenzo, all' odio incomprensibile di Sergio ma anche da un piccolo amore sempre crescente della piccola Adriana...
Sarà proprio questa piccola anima innocente a salvare da questo mondo di disperazione la nostra "ritornata", una bimba di 8 anni ma già donna nel conoscere e nel sapere come relazionarsi e come tirare a campare nelle faccende di casa e nelle relazioni, spesso corrotte di cattiveria, nel mondo del paesello abruzzese dove vivono. Sarà proprio questo rapporto di amore e adorazione reciproca che salverà queste due bambine, una dall'accettazione di questa famiglia interrotta e abbandonata, e l'altra da un mondo di miseria dove non esiste tenerezza innocenza e amore per le "creature".
Una condizione che ti assale come l'ansia di notte, mi chiedo come sia possibile che accada nella metà anni 70!!
Nella complicità ci siamo salvate ed è questa frase riportata che mi gira nell'anima, la salvezza arriva da questa capacità di stare insieme, amandosi a vicenda, come per ripianare anche l'aridità di ciò che non è mai stato donato.....
Mi colpisce molto anche il momento preciso in cui " la ritornata" ricorda il giorno del ritiro della licenza di Scuola Media, quella mano appoggiata sulla spalla della madre biologica, quell'unico gesto carnale che viene riportato e ricordato come se fosse un "Pensiero reliquia" da questa bambina...
E' un libro da leggere sicuramente e assolutamente non facile da recensire..... ci sarebbe da scriverci un ulteriore libro sulla questione bidimensionale delle due realtà, una dove la vita e i dialoghi avvengono in italiano, l'altro, quello povero e provinciale.... tutti i dialoghi vengono scritti in dialetto semplice abruzzese, il dolore della morte di Vincenzo e la distruzione di quel poco di emotivo rimasto della mamma di questi ragazzi, la possibilità di riscatto grazie all'aiuto dell' insegnante Perilli, colei che insisterà sino alla minaccia,pur di far continuare nello studio la nostra bambina...
La narrazione raccontata inizialmente proprio da una " Arminuta" adulta, che ricorda insieme ad Adriana ormai grande come lei, quel passato di estremo dolore, di assenza di verità.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

My heart has a few new cracks in it. While not at all sentimental, this book touched me deeply.

"I was thirteen, yet I didn't know my other mother." So begins Donatella Di Pietrantonio's novel A Girl Returned. Our narrator is looking back from adulthood and telling the story of this tumultuous year in her life. Raised by distant, well-off relatives, she is returned to her impoverished birth family--her parents and 4 siblings-- with no explanation; and thrust into an entirely different world.

In her new world food is scarce, privacy is non-existent, all family members are expected to contribute, and frustrations are vented through physical violence. And yet . . . bonds begin to form. The strongest tie is with her sister Adriana. I think the two sisters save each other in a way. They teach each other about different ways to live which are important for both of them to survive well. And they come to love each other.

That feeling of being moved around--to her adoptive family, to her birth family, to a boarding house during high school-- "like a package" must have been devastating, leaving her to feel insecure and unsure of being loved. She never completely gets over this feeling.

"In time I lost that confused idea of normality, too, and today I really don't know what place a mother is. It's absent from my life the way good health, shelter, certainty can be absent. It's an enduring emptiness, which I know but can't get past. My head whirls if I look inside it. A desolate landscape that keeps you from sleeping at night and constructs nightmares in the little sleep it allows. The only mother I never lost is the one of my fears."

This is one of many striking passages in this novel, in this case drilling down into the essence of the unease in her life.

The narrator is strong and resilient; she finds a way to transcend the abandonment of two mothers and creates a space for herself to belong in her birth family and to move forward with her life.

Anne Goldstein's translation is spare yet evocative, the characters are nuanced and complex, and tension is maintained throughout the work. While the story is heavy, there is a light touch which creates the feel of an easy read. Di Pietrantonio sparingly threads snippets from the future into her story to show how this time period shapes the narrator's life. Despite it's slim size, this compelling read delves into the themes of class and family.

I love this novel and I am now in search of Di Pietrantonio's novel about Adriana, A Sister's Story.

Buddy read with Jennifer.
Jennifer's lovely review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Published 2017

[Malacorda · Rating 3 out of 5]

La voce della protagonista stessa, a distanza di ormai vent'anni dai fatti accaduti, racconta di quando, nemmeno quattordicenne, ha dovuto lasciare quella che aveva sempre creduto la propria famiglia, con una vita ordinaria e modestamente agiata, in una bella cittadina sul mare, per venire catapultata in una realtà di povertà, nell'entroterra, presso quella che scopre essere la sua vera e numerosissima famiglia. Il doppio trauma deriva dal brusco cambiamento di realtà e dal non sapere più qual è il proprio vero nucleo di appartenenza. Anzi, triplo trauma perché piano piano, dopo tutto, la ragazza si abituerà alla sua nuova vita e si affezionerà ad alcuni componenti della nuova e rozza famiglia, e quindi proverà la paura di dover di nuovo perdere tutto e ricominciare daccapo un'altra volta a causa dell'imminente inizio del liceo.

Non arrivo a provare l'entusiasmo di chi ha assegnato a questo libro il massimo dei voti, però ne condivido una dicsreta parte di osservazioni e motivazioni. Io l'ho trovato un buon romanzo, ben congegnata la trama e soprattutto ben dosata la narrazione: se fosse stato di trecento pagine anziché centosessanta, sarebbe stato un inutile mattonazzo. Avrei voluto votare 4/5, peccato per il finale un po' fumoso, non risolutivo, decisamente tirato via: a causa di questo gli devo togliere un'altra stella.

La scrittura asciutta e tagliente permette di trattare in modo molto sobrio e per nulla melenso i temi dell'affido, dell'adozione, del bisogno di appartenenza ad un nucleo familiare in maniera esclusiva e inequivocabile.

Ma quel che ho più gradito è stato il tema della dicotomia tra la vita imborghesita della piccola cittadina e la vita di campagna/montagna un po' fuori dal mondo: quest'ultima a rappresentare esistenze sottoproletarie, un po' rozze e ignoranti, legate alle superstizioni ma anche più vicine alla naturalità del creato e più distanti da certe assurdità della modernità, più vicine al passato che al presente. E' un tema attualissimo, è una dicotomia visibile ancora oggi altrettanto bene quanto negli anni settanta in cui è ambientato il romanzo. Tema sempre attuale in quanto apparentemente privo di soluzione: a volte ci si trova a vivere da una parte piuttosto che dall'altra solo perché trasportati dalla corrente, in altri casi c'è chi può compiere una scelta, la cosa veramente difficile da realizzare sarebbe una metà via: a proposito di questo mi è mancata un'ultima parola dell'autrice e/o della protagonista.

In ogni caso, ho apprezzato il carattere spontaneo di questo lavoro: a me non è parso ammiccante, non mi ha dato il senso di operazione commerciale pianificata a tavolino.

[Ana Cristina Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una buena historia y bien contada, además de breve - se lee en un par de sentadas. Si te gusta Elena Ferrante te gustará esta novela, con su ambientación en el sur de Italia en los años 70 y con un drama familiar muy poderoso.

Es el caso de una niña nacida en una familia pobre de un pueblo, que con seis meses es adoptada por unos parientes de la ciudad que le pueden ofrecer una vida mejor. La novela empieza cuando, con trece años, la devuelven bruscamente a su familia biológica, sin explicación alguna, y la niña se tiene que adaptar a unos padres hoscos y a un entorno muy diferente del que estaba acostumbrada.

Pasados unos días sabría competir por la comida y estar concentrada en el plato para defenderlo de las incursiones aéreas de los tenedores. Pero aquella vez perdí lo poco que la mano de la madre había destinado a mi escasa ración.

El desarrollo es muy bueno, huyendo del exceso de dramatismo, con situaciones muy reales de la vida cotidiana. Los personajes también son verosímiles y algunos están llenos de humanidad. Especialmente la pequeña Adriana, la hermana menor que la acoge y la protege con la fuerza de su debilidad.

También me ha gustado el estilo, simple y directo, pero con buenos momentos:

Iba a llamar cuando la hoja se abrió despacio y en la penumbra del recibidor apareció una chica colosal. Eso me pareció, en comparación conmigo. Me saludó con un hola ancho y acogedor, ya lleno de confianza. La voz encantaba, tintineaban en ella minúsculas campanillas que enmudecían instantes después de las palabras.

En conjunto, una buena lectura.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Girl Returned quickly builds a little world out of thin air and from that point on sticks to an economy of words that serves it well. A nameless girl – the Arminuta, the girl returned – is sent back to her birth parents for no apparent reason after having been adopted years before as a baby, leaving her shocked and incredulous. As this new life must yet resume, short but evocative chapters chronicle her way into an Italian countryside of modest means, occasionally treating the reader to beachfront memories the color of faded postcards.

A breezy read, for all the underlying drama, thanks to the author’s light touch and to my easygoing buddy reader, Ebba.

[Ebba Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine you are a girl. You have a name but it is unknown to us. You were adopted by a distant cousin of your father when you were a baby (6 months old), you have very good grades, you have a secure life, you go to dance class etc. You are priviliged. You have a best friend named Patrizia and you live in a nice house with your adoptive parents. Now you are aged 13 and being returned by your adoptive parents to your birth parents and you have no idea why.

The writing is good. The novel captiving. Good cover illustration by Elisa Talentino.

This is the beginning:

"I was thirteen, yet I did not know my mother. I struggled up the stairs to her apartment with an unwieldy suitcase and a bag of jumbled shoes. On the landing I was greeted by the smell of recent frying and wait. The door wouldn't open: someone was shaking it wordlessly on the inside and fussing with the lock. (...) There was a metallic click, and a girl with loose braids that hadn't been done for several days appeared."

We really learn a lot in these few sentences.

The girl with the loose braids is my favourite character of this novel. She is the Girl's younger sister, named Adriana, and I also like Vanda, the unnamed Girl's best friend's mother.

And the Girl's biological father surprised me in a good way in one scene. Loved this moment. I usually do not hold grudges. But I am holding a grudge against a fictional character called Adalgisa (the Girl's adoptive mother). I have nothing against her birth parents.

It was a fun buddy read with my friend Charles. It is a book I would recommend to my friends as I liked it. It is a slim book with short chapters. Good writing all the way through. I have rated it 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. I was being kept at a distance by most or all protagonists which is understandable (even though I definitely prefer closeness). But I felt that it was suitable for the story.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

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In spite of its short length Arminuta packs a real punch. I was almost hypnotised by its incredibly unsentimental narrative. Although Di Pietrantonio uses a seemingly direct and unadorned language, she's able to brilliantly evoke the narrator's world. However stark and unpleasant, everything was depicted in such a sharp and vivid way that I was entranced even by those scenes which held no beauty.
The intensity of the narrator's account of her 'return' is striking. As a child she is unable to reconcile herself with being sent away from the parents who raised her, and there is nothing quite as heartbreaking as a child who is made to feel like they are unwanted. Her biological parents are so different from her 'previous' parents that the narrator feels increasingly lost and unhappy. Angry at those who have rejected (treating her as if she were little more than a parcel), having to adjust to her family's poverty (far from what she was used to), and enduring her brothers' taunts, it is only through her studies and her younger sister Adriana that the narrator can alleviate her despair. The bond between the two sisters was rendered with incredible realism. Adriana is incredibly loyal to the narrator and provides plenty of heartwarming moments (she is such a passionate and resilient girl!).
In Arminuta the narrator relates her uneasy formative years, and her narrative is underscored by a muted ambivalence. In spite of its length this novel gives a layered portrayal of a girl divided between two families.
In an introspective and thought-provoking journey the narrator ventures into her painful childhood, viewing the behaviour of the adults around her with a new understanding while still faithfully conveying the feelings and thoughts she had at that young age.

re-read: this novel really means a lot to me. I love how unsparing it is, the dialects, the striking sense of place, and the author's ability to capture her narrator's discomfort with such clarity. In many ways it reminded of an all time favourite of mine, Caucasia, as in both of these novels the narrators realize that their parents' love is not unconditional. My only issue with this novel is the way the author ultimately portrays Romani people in a negative light...

[Tyrone_Slothrop (ex-MB) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ve lo meritate, Alessandro Baricco!

con questa lettura, ho dovuto accettare come fatto incontrovertibile, senza scusanti, nè attenuanti, che nel giudizio sulla letteratura (pardon, diciamo sulla produzione libresca) italica "sarò sempre parte di una minoranza" (ma in fondo, lo sospettavo già...).
Sì, perchè questa, che è stata l'ultima lettura del 2017, è stata sicuramente la peggiore (insieme all'Arte dell Gioia della Sapienza - magari in fondo sono solo un maschilista represso...) e non mi capacito davvero che tanti lodino queste pagine.
Per me, la letteratura non ha nulla a che fare con la "storia" (terribile e stra-abusato termine) che si vuole narrare: ha a che fare con lo stile, il ritmo, le visioni e le atmosfere che sa creare, i sentimenti e le emozioni che suscita con le parole, ricercate e scelte una ad una, con la capacità di costruire nuovi mondi, nuove dimensioni, nuove percezioni che possano creare anche nuovi noi stessi lettori.
Ed in queste 150 pagine non c'è nulla di questo: c'è solo la famigerata "storia", costruita in modo tale da ammiccare ai lettori con questo misto di autobiografismo spicciolo e artificioso; di nostalgia per i perduti valori del sottoproletariato di chi (ovviamente) sottoproletario non è mai stato; di inquietudini piccolo-borghesi per la vitalità rozza ma vera delle belle macro-famiglie italiche, non ancora contaminate dalla bieca social-democrazia politicamente corretta.
E peccato che tutto questo ce lo avevano detto molto meglio, nei tempi giusti (cioè 50 anni fa) e sapendo scrivere alcuni veri intellettuali come Pasolini e Moravia - e quindi questa è solo una truffa ordita ai danni di chi non conosce le basi della letteratura italiana e pensa di leggere qualcosa di originale e vero. Insomma, niente di più (o di meno) delle operazioni furbe e di medio livello sulle quali si è costruito una carriera Baricco: se alla massa (sempre più ridotta) di lettori piace così, bene per loro, per gli editori, i librai e per chi di libri venduti ci deve campare - ma, per favore, non chiamiamola letteratura!
torno ad Arbasino, lui sì intellettuale vero, colto, sofisticato, ironico, barocco e arzigogolato, postmoderno ed intelligente, ma soprattutto scrittore...

[María · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 de 5 estrellas ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (es una auténtica maravilla)
Una novela corta, muy breve y que te llega tanto.
Una niña que debe volver con sus padres biológicos a un hogar con un estilo educativo muy particular, muy de antaño, muy de padres carentes de habilidades. Después de haber tenido comodidades, complacencia y una casa frente al mar. A ese retorno deberá enfrentarse la protagonista y a las preguntas sobre su fatal abandono.
Contado desde las emociones, desde las situaciones más cotidianas que hacen que enseguida empatices con la protagonista y no quieras dejar de leer hasta saber porque está ahí ahora.
La recomiendo muchísimo y ojalá hubiera sido más extensa porque lo merecía

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this on a whim after comparing books I could get in Hoopla with the Tournament of Books longlist and loved it! It's about a 13 year old who is suddenly returned to her much poorer birth family and has no idea why, and forced to navigate siblings, work, all while feeling rejected and grieving her former life. The comparisons to Ferrante are warranted for once, and not only that they share a translator. I hope we see more from this author in the future!

[Fran (on hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1975, "I was the Arminuta, the girl returned." A thirteen year old girl once lived near the sea in Southern Italy. "From my house near the beach, you could hear the sound of the waves." Fish dinners eaten in the garden and walks to the ice cream shop were commonplace. She attended swimming lessons and dancing school. Her best friend was Patrizia. One day without warning, her parents said, "I'm sorry, but we can't keep you anymore..." She was whisked away to the country, to the chaotic home of her "birth mother". Her birth mother's greeting upon her arrival, "you're here".

"From the moment I was given back to her, the word 'mamma' had stuck in my throat". "Behind her a fly buzzed around in midair, now and then flinging itself at the wall, in search of a way out." "... I would learn to compete for food and stay focused on my plate to defend it from aerial fork raids".

Despite the deprivations encountered by the teenager, she was able to bond with two of her siblings, oldest brother Vincenzio and younger sister Ariana...but...where did she truly belong? It seemed that neither the mother who birthed her or the mother who raised her until age thirteen would offer her any explanations for their actions. "I was twice an orphan of two living mothers." This is a heavy burden to be placed on teenage shoulders.

"A Girl Returned" by Donatella Di Pietrantonio presents detailed descriptions of our unnamed protagonist and fleshes out many principal and secondary characters. This work of literary fiction left me wanting clarity. Why did these two mother figures behave in this manner? What life path did "the Arminuta" eventually travel? Did her siblings land on their feet? This reader felt that there were too many unanswered questions.

Thank you Europa Editions and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "A Girl Returned".

[Mihaela Abrudan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cea care se întoarce, este povestea unei adolescente care are două mame, două familii, dar ambele o resping fără să-i da drumul să plece cu adevărat. Interesant că pe tot parcursul cărții nu-i aflăm numele, ea este cea anonimă și totuși în centru unei familii pe care nu și-o dorește, dar fără de care nu poate exista. Donatella Di Pietrantonio este o forță, o autoare de talia Elenei Ferrante.

[Alex.andthebooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ta książka miała taki potencjał! A jednak przez całą lekturę towarzyszyło mi poczucie niedopowiedzenia oraz wrażenie, że donikąd nie prowadzi i… zakończenie trochę to potwierdziło.

[Antoinette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with the tone of this book immediately. It took me back to my childhood and to my mother’s stories of her life in Italy. When I read books by Italian authors, I always sense a different emotional depth to them. I find them to be unique and always memorable. Is it because I hear my mother’s voice? That could be- all I know is this book is one I would love to wrap in my arms in a huge hug.

“ I was an orphan with two living mothers. One had given me up with her milk still on my tongue, the other had given me back at the age of thirteen. I was a child of separations, false or unspoken kinships, distances. I no longer knew who I came from. In my heart I don’t know even now.”

Our unknown narrator is looking back on her tumultuous childhood. Please imagine growing up as an only child in a well to do family with many opportunities and being thrust at the age of 13 back to your birth family ( unbeknownst to you), who live in poverty, where slaps and beatings are more common than any word of kindness. All of a sudden, you are one of 6 children. What a shock that was to our narrator. The only bright spot in her life is hers sister, Adriana. You can’t help but love Adriana, a tough, no nonsense 10 year old girl, who immediately forges a bond with her sister.

This is the kind of book I live for- an honest look at families and the bonds that make us or break us. This is a short book that is filled with so much intensity it left me aching. Absolutely, a masterpiece!!

Must commend Ann Goldstein- I love her Italian translations!

My GR friend, Jim Z., told me to hurry up and read it. I wish I had got to it sooner. I know it will be one of my best books of the year. Thanks, Jim!

Published: 2019

[Maria Bikaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Διαβάζεται σχεδόν απνευστί. Ένα βιβλίο αρκετά τρυφερό, με την ιστορία να ρέει μέσα σε λίγες σελίδες χωρίς περιττές αναφορές. Συμπαθητικό, απλοϊκό και κατανοητό αλλά μέχρι εκεί. Προσωπικά δεν κατάφερα στο βαθμό που πίστευα και θα ήθελα να συνδεθώ ιδιαίτερα συναισθηματικά με την ηρωίδα. Χωρίς να λέω ότι δε με άγγιξε καθόλου η ιστορία της Αρμινούτα δεν ήταν για μένα αυτή η ιστορία που θα με κάνει να μη μπορώ να συγκρατήσω τα δάκρυα μου κατά τη διάρκεια της ανάγνωσης. Μου έστειλαν στοιχεία κατά τη διάρκεια της αφήγησης της ιστορίας, βρήκα το τέλος λίγο βιαστικό και ασύνδετο ενώ ο πραγματικός λόγος της επιστροφής της αρμινούτας στην πραγματική της οικογένεια δεν ξέρω κάπως μου κλώτσησε. Επίσης νομίζω επειδή μέσα στο βιβλίο θα διαβάσει κανείς και για τη δύναμη της αδελφικής αγάπης ότι ακριβώς επειδή δεν έχω αδέρφια δε μπόρεσα αν θέλετε στο βαθμό που θα έπρεπε να καταλάβω το μεγαλείο της σχέσης της Αρμινούτα με την αδερφή της όπως εκείνη εξελίχθηκε.
Εν τούτοις είναι ένα βιβλίο που προτείνεται. Στα συν η προσεγμένη του έκδοση και η μετάφραση του.

[Elalma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erano mesi che vedevo la bella copertina di questo libro ovunque, molto popolare e recensito con grande entusiasmo. Pensavo fosse una di quelle storie accattivanti e che la popolarità fosse dovuto a questo. E' davvero una bella storia in cui si infrange il mito della maternità adottiva e biologica, in cui emerge la complicità tra sorelle, temi forti che vengono trattati con asciutta concisione. Avrebbe potuto essere un polpettone o un melodramma di tantissime pagine, e invece è tutto rifinito, cesellato, ridotto all'essenziale affinché ogni singola parola abbia il giusto peso. Ci sono tanti silenzi, tante pause, tanto sgomento, molto viene lasciato al lettore, nessuna spiegazione appesantisce il racconto. E come ogni vera leccornia lascia il desiderio di averne ancora, di saperne di più, ma fa parte della ricchezza.

[Ramona Boldizsar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Credeam că intru în reading slump și poate chiar intram, dar am pus mâna pe cartea asta azi și am și terminat-o. M-a prins foarte tare stilul autoarei. Și povestea, dar cred că cel mai tare m-a sedus scriitura. Vreau să citesc și continuarea (Borgo Sud) cât de curând. Frumoasă, ușor dureroasă; te atașezi cam rapid de personaje, dat fiind spațiul restrâns și apariția lor bruscă - ceea ce denotă măiestria autoarei. Loved.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

[4+] This short novel starts bleakly - a young girl is forced to leave the home she has always known without understanding the reasons. Yet it is not a tragic novel. I was captivated by the narrator's perspective of her new family- particularly the tender relationship with her sister. I would love to read more by DiPietrantonio - and will read anything translated by Ann Goldstein!