The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales

by Elizabeth Spencer, Robert Phillips (Introduction)

Elizabeth Spencer is captivated by Italy. For her it has been a second home. A one-time resident who returns there, this native-born Mississippian has found Italy to be an enchanting land whose culture lends itself powerfully to her artistic vision.

Some of her most acclaimed work is set there. Her American characters encounter but never quite wholly adjust to the mysteries of the Italian mores. Collected here in one volume are Spencer's six Italian tales. Their plots are so alluring and enigmatic that Boccaccio would have been charmed by their delightful ironies and their sinister contrasts of dark and light.

Spencer is grounded in two bases―Italy and the American South. Her characters too, mostly southerners, rove in search of connection and fulfillment.

In The Light in the Piazza (a novella which has become both Spencer's signature piece and a Hollywood film) a stranger from North Carolina, traveling with her beautiful daughter, encounters the intoxicating beauty of sunlit Florence and discovers a deep conflict in the moral dilemma it presents. “I think this work has great charm,” Spencer has said, “and it probably is the real thing, a work written under great compulsion, while I was under the spell of Italy. But it took me, all told, about a month to write.”

The light in the piazza
The white azalea
The visit
The Pincian Gate
Wisteria
Knights and dragons
The cousins

In Knights and Dragons (another novella and a companion piece to The Light in the Piazza ) an American woman in Rome and Venice struggles for release from her husband's sinister control over her. Spencer sets this tale in the cold and wintry dark and here portrays the other face of Italy. In “The Cousins,” “The Pincian Gate,” “The White Azalea,” and “The Visit,” Spencer shows the exceptional artistry that has merited acclaim for her as one of America's first-class writers of the short story.

The Light in the Piazza may long be the work for which she is most recognized. In 2005, the Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York City staged a musical adaptation of this novella. The production brought together the talents of Adam Guettel (music and lyrics) and Craig Lucas (book), while director Bartlett Sher made his Lincoln Center debut. That year the musical won six of the eleven Tony awards it was nominated for. It was thereafter produced on stages across the globe and eventually returned to Lincoln Center in 2016 for a reunion of its original cast as a benefit concert.

Genres: Short Stories, Italy, Fiction, Classics, Travel, Literary Fiction, Italian Literature

239 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Elizabeth Spencer was an American writer. Spencer's first novel, Fire in the Morning, was published in 1948. She has written a total of nine novels, seven collections of short stories, a memoir (Landscapes of the Heart, 1998), and a play (For Lease or Sale, 1989). Her novella The Light in the Piazza (1960) was adapted for the screen in 1962 and transformed into a Broadway musical of the same name in 2005. She is a five-time recipient of the O. Henry Award for short fiction.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Nobody with a dream should come to Italy. No matter how dead and buried the dream is thought to be, in Italy it will rise and walk again.”

These two novellas and five short stories will transport you back to the Venice, Florence, and Rome you may have once visited. If you haven’t been there, you will want to book your trip immediately. Elizabeth Spencer’s love of Italy is infused in each story, all about Americans visiting or living there in the 1950s.

The title novella is the author’s signature piece and the favorite of most readers.A wealthy American mother and her 26-year-old mentally challenged daughter are enjoying the warm Italian weather and all the attractions sought by tourists. The appearance of an attractive young Italian and the chemistry between him and the daughter was not expected. It is a fun piece but not my favorite. Knights and Dragons, the other novella, was darker and more to my liking. The protagonist works in Rome and Florence but is tormented by a former husband’s domineering control of her every thought. No Mediterranean blue skies and warm sun, just the damp and dreary days of December. “White Azalea” shows Spencer’s wit and put a smile on my face. “The Cousins” was my favorite short story. I’m always fascinated by how memories may differ, especially in a thirty year interim.

The Light in the Piazza was written in 1960. It made its debut in The New Yorker and later was adapted to the stage and screen. It was reissued in 1996 in this collection. Spencer is a fine writer, and I’m glad these stories were brought back to life. I thoroughly enjoyed reading these fine examples of her work.

[Maciek · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know why I was drawn to this particular collection of stories - perhaps it was the title, with its arcane meaning; perhaps the setting, which is a country I've never been to but for a long time wanted to see at least once. Because, let's be honest - who wouldn't?

The Light in the Piazza is the story of Margaret Johnson and her daughter Clara, who travel to Italy to spend their vacation in Florence - where they met a local boy, Fabrizio, who develops an attraction towards Clara. However, Margaret is concerned about her daughter entering into a relationship with the young Italian because of a tragic event from Clara's youth. Instead of a simple summer romance full of la dolce vita, the story is heavy with the subject of parental love and the impact it has on our children.

The problem is that it does not quite work - mostly because for a large part of the story Elizabeth Spencer has her characters wonder about how different Italians are from Americans, with both cultures being little more than simple stereotypes, with little to no insight into their ways and behavior. At one point a character thinks that there might be good people everywhere in the world but Europeans generally don't have as much common sense, "the Latin races" being especially prone to this flaw. Things like this pop up all throughout this story, leaving me to wonder why it was so highly acclaimed - it is nowhere near complex enough to be serious, and nowhere near as amusing to be considered humorous. I also felt that in the end, little was made of the setting, which initially drew me to the story. We are told that we are in Italy, with its streets, statues and piazzas, but I could never bring myself to believe it - all description felt like a movie prop, and not a real place that actually exists somewhere.

I found the six other stories to be unmemorable and have nothing to say about them; they simply did not stay with me after I was done with them, and at the time I was happy to having finished the book and move on to something else. Not a good sign, and certainly not a recommendation to prospective readers.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title story (which became a famous musical I never saw) is deft, leanly constructed and surprisingly powerful (even as it leaves you quite uneasy about a number of things). Its tale (with a twist) of Americans or Brits in Italy, love, money, and marriage falls neatly into a tradition I adore that dates to Room with a View, if not before, and moves through Edith Wharton (and Spencer is something like a very minor Edith Wharton in style and sensibility) to the divine Shirley Hazzard, and found charming contemporary expression in the Imperfectionists. When you think about it, Florence and Rome are quite remarkable literary characters in modern fiction in their own right.

But the Light in the Piazza is definitely this collections height. Cousins is 2nd, very well crafted and the interplay among the young people on their first trip abroad is charming and nostalgic, even if the central triangle and very Southern-in-the 50s love that dare not even whisper its name feels a little too patly Tennessee Williams to be fresh (though to be fair, I haven't checked publication dates, and can't claim that there was any direct influence).

Knights and Dragons, the other novella besides light in the Piazza, was almost unreadably overwritten, with a lot of heavily allusive meandering prose, and an overdose of very dated seeming Freudianism. And the other stories ranged from cute to instantly forgettable.

So, the 3 stars is really an average. But it is fast reading, and not overly "impegnativo" as the Italians would say (apart from Knights and Dragons, which I found quite heavygoing), so I recommend at the least Light in the Piazza and Cousins to any short story fans with a weakness for Italy, especially to those like me who have an impossible nostalgia for a mid-century Italy they never saw!

[Old Man JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of two novellas and five short stories all about Americans on extended stays in Italy. The title story "The Light in the Piazza" was really the only one that I thought was good the rest were fairly mediocre. "The Light in the Piazza" was about a mother and her grown daughter in Florence when a romance develops between the daughter and a young Italian. The mother tried to stop the romance by taking her daughter with her to Rome but that didn't work. The other stories were basically soap operas set in Italy but could have been placed anywhere with only occasional references to Italy.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. The title story was my inspiration for reading this collection, and it was my first experience with this author. After seeing the musical, I wanted to explore another of my home state writers. Her writing is excellent, but not all the stories held my interest. The other novell, Knights and Dragons, meandered and I dnf halfway through it, but enjoyed the final one, The Cousins.

[Alex Corridoni · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read an interview Elizabeth Spencer gave in The Paris Review sometime in the ‘80s, which prompted me to buy this collection of short stories. She talked at length about her time she spent living in Italy, a place that I think about at least once a day. Her love for the country was clear in this interview and I wanted to be reminded of why I long to go back.

I gave three stars because although Spencer successfully sparked the nostalgia I was hoping to get from her stories, I found myself flipping forward to figure out how many more pages I had to get through until the end of the story with a few of them. “The Light in the Piazza”, the first story of the collection, and “Cousins”, the last of the seven, were written beautifully, with stimulating dialogue and plots that intrigued me. Those two stories alone were amazing. But the other five were forgettable and at times, extremely overwritten. “Knights and Dragons” specifically, included sentences that were half a page or more. It was easy to become confused with who was speaking or what was going on more often than not.

The stories did provide great imagery though, and if you’ve been to Italy and have fallen in love with Florence (or Venice or Rome) as I have, they’re worth the read. I’m hopelessly nostalgic when it comes to the country and would love to one day live there, but if you’re looking to read these just to knock out a short story collection, it may not be for you.

[Summer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, finished The Cousins. 3 stars. Strange story, I don't know how relationships between cousins were viewed when Spencer wrote this, but it was weird to me. But at least there was a clear and semi-interesting story this time.

Altogether, I couldn't rate the collection more than 2 stars. The Light in the Piazza was good, even though I think the musical is better. Spencer's writing style was just really bad, though. Her sentences were severely chopped up, and it almost felt like it was just a really poor translation, but it was written in English by an American, so it wasn't that. It was particularly bad in Knights and Dragons.

Also, these aren't really "Italian" tales. They're about Americans being American in Italy. None of the characters ever bothered to try to acclimate to the Italian life. There were characters that lived there for years that never even tried to learn Italian. That's just a huge pet peeve of mine. Learn the language of the place you live, it's just the nice thing to do! I could go on a rant about acclimating to culture, but I won't do that here.

These things may not bother anybody else, but they bothered me greatly. And I'm very disappointed because I was highly anticipating this collection. Oh well, they can't all be gold.

[Gina]

Started 13 May 2024
Abandoned 16 May 2024

I finally finished reading the first story (originally published as a novella), The Light in the Piazza, which was a bit of an overwritten, meandering slog.

I am DNFing this collection, but I marked the novella as read in order to review and rate that story.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Light in the Piazza is an answer to Henry James. I am big fan of Henry James and his various novels about Americans traveling and living in Europe. But of course most of the time the sturdy, sober American has no clue about the nuisances of what really happening in the culture. They are often played for the fool who can't seem to see behind the veil of a polished society.

Elizabeth Spencer's The Light in the Piazza is a response to James where the American is hiding behind convention. The basic premise is that a young woman who has suffered some sort of mental impairment is traveling in Italy with her mother. The girl meets an Italian man and one thing leads to another and they end up married. I won't spoil the ins and out of the story, but over and over I kept thinking it's taking a page from Mr. James and I completely enjoyed seeing an American pull the wool over someone's eyes.

I highly recommend this novella to fans for Henry James. Although the writing is not up to his standards, it is still a delightful and entertaining read.

[Sarah Vernall · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful, thoughtful collection, tied together with a common thread; they are stories of Americans abroad in Italy, equal parts enchanted and unsettled, with metaphorical baggage that they were unable to lose along the way. Post-war Florence and Rome, in their own fashion, are almost characters themselves, while Genoa and, more notably, Venice put in memorable cameos. Spencer's prose is deft, precise and has a beautiful delicacy to it, like shapes blown from coloured smoke hanging in the air for just a moment ... Her dialogue, conversely, is quick and sharp and lively, seething under the tongue with all those things that her characters are deliberately not saying (the repression is tangible in so many of these stories).

The titular story - 'The Light in the Piazza' is nothing short of a small, self-contained masterpiece. Inarguably the highlight of the collection and the most distinctly Italianate in feel and character. Radiating summer light and warm tiles and glinting marble, the idyllic beauty of Florence and the sweetness and charm of Clara Johnson blossoming into a maiden in Italy are neatly undercut by the psyche of her anxious mother who serves as narrator.

Through Margaret Johnson the story unfolds like a flower unfurling and shaking out its petals, both uncomfortable and deeply romantic; we learn of the traumatic brain injury that rendered Clara a forever child, Margaret's initial desperate attempts to try to give her a normal schooling and girlhood, the revival of her hopes seeing how Clara takes to Italy and how Fabrizzio protects her - "Nobody with a dream should come to Italy. No matter how dead and buried the dream is thought to be, in Italy it will rise and walk again." The juxtaposition between the beauty of the piazza and Clara's innocent joy with all the lingering tension present - the phone calls from home, the Naccarellis' bulldozering, the violent death of a man in the square, the unspoken shadow of Italy's relationship with fascism. It's such a nuanced and lovely and full little story, and the Johnson women are both so compelling.

'Knights And Dragons' is the other novella length piece and it's very much the inverted mirror of Piazza in many ways. More an expatriate story than a holiday story, it gives us Rome in the winter, drizzly and cold, noisy and claustrophobic, teeming with bullying landlords, teething problems, a sense of constant displacement and being lost in translation. While Piazza saunters, all lazy and linearly, through its plot points in order, Knights ducks and weaves and flits and doesn't make it easy for the reader to work out what is happening in the narrative, mirroring the sense of disorientation and dislocation and also the increasingly fragile and fractured state of the main female character.

Martha Ingram, likewise, is the opposite of Margaret Johnson; the latter is resourceful, solid, planted in her truth and her plans. Margaret experiences doubt and anxiety over her developing predicament but ultimately commits to a choice and makes it happen, probably to the benefit of most parties. Martha, conversely, seems to be constantly running or hiding from something; bad memories, complex guilt, well-meaning but condescending visitors, her own implied paranoia (query psychosis?). Margaret makes things happen, Martha is happenened upon, and her choices and sense of self seem to shrink and shrink through the story leaving her as a doll, "clipped-out with scissors". By no means does this make her less compelling or sympathetic than the Johnson women; indeed, by alternating her point of view with that of her kind an paternal employer in Italy, we are become deeply invested in and mired in Martha Ingram's struggles to extricate herself from her sadness and her sinister, significantly older ex-husband.

'The Cousins' is just a pure delight. Framed like a classic missing person story, our understanding of the narrative gradually twists; the 'lost' Eric never truly lost (his titular cousins knew he was in Italy the whole time, it was merely that he felt 'lost' to them) and perhaps, ultimately, it was our incandescent, lively narrator Ella Mason who finds herself by visiting him in Italy some three decades later. The descriptions of the cousins's grand tour are a giddy, heartfelt whirl, punctuated like a punctured balloon hissing out its air with the incursions of real life - a sudden marriage, an ailing spouse, a failed year at university. This story gives a simpler but arguably more skillful weaving of the past and present, of the external and internal drama. Of the three novella length stories in the collection, this is the one that feels like it could have - should have - been a full length literary novel.

The other, significantly shorter, short stories are all lovely sepia-toned snapshots, each with their own vivid moments.

[Elena Stefanova · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the writing style rich, slightly peculiar, very poetic. Spencer can be hilarious or sinister when she wants to. All were Italy related stories, which I loved, while the characters, although similar it that they were rich and American, were unique and elaborate with complex relationships. I would like to re-read this some day.

[Madison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grabbed this just to read The Light in the Piazza before trying to find the movie and musical. My bestie Jess introduced me to this title so I was intrigued to see what it was about. I'm interested to see it brought to the big screen, so gotta have a movie night!

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve wanted to read “The Light in the Piazza” by Elizabeth Spencer for some time now. I remember first reading about the musical version years ago in my local paper when it came to my city, and I wanted really bad to see it. It looked really good and the story about Clara and Fabrizzio, and her mother Margret sounded really interesting!

So I finally got the original novella and I totally enjoyed it! It’s a great story and I just really loved Clara and Fabrizzio’s relationship and finding each other! Very interesting too with Clara’s backstory and Margret not wanting the secret to get out and ruin her daughter’s happiness once Margret was ok with their relationship. Plus, I’m part Italian myself and I love reading stories that take place there and more so when Americans are involved.

I just wish I would have been able to see the musical. Maybe one day I will. The changes sound really good and they added more to the story. I did find out while I was reading this that Matthew Morrison from “Glee” originated the role of Fabrizzio and I can totally see him playing him! Not sure if he was the actor in the role when they came to my city or not.

The book this story was in also included 6 other stories Elizabeth wrote about Americans in Italy. Most of these were short stories kind of about the length of some fanfics. One I really liked was titled “The Pincian Gate”. This story was really good and about 2 former American classmates that met up again in Italy. The other I really loved was called “The Cousins” and was about a novella size story. It focuses on a group of distant cousins from down South who all go on a trip to Italy in their late teens/early 20s. It’s told through flashbacks and the present by both Ella and Eric, which take place 30 years later. The story does have a love triangle involving Ella, Eric, and Ben. The main ship that comes from it is who I was rooting for. I also really enjoyed the supporting characters of Jamie and Mayfred. I just really loved this story too!

After reading the whole book I think “The Light in the Piazza” and “The Cousins” are my 1st and 2nd favorite Elizabeth Spencer stories.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book actually has 7 stories - The Light in the Piazza and Knights and Dragons are novella-length, and The Cousins is a bit more substantial too. The other stories are slighter fare but still quite enjoyable.

"The Light in the Piazza" is a little masterpiece. It was written in Montreal in the course of one snowstormy month in 1958. It is dated in the sense that these days, there would be all sorts of special education classes for Clara, and her mother Margaret would probably never have taken her to Italy. It is timeless in Margaret's dream of a "normal life" for her daughter. Margaret's resourcefulness fights with her supposedly unrealistic dream - the dream becomes reality but only after Margaret sees herself more clearly in the Italian light and understands the risk she must take to make this happen. This realization could not be more modern.

"Knights and Dragons" caught my interest some of the time but at other times, mired itself in mental complication - always beautifully written, sometimes heart-breakingly so - but to me it ultimately did not succeed, despite my deep sympathy/empathy with Martha. Hence the 4 stars.

Ella Mason narrates the story of "The Cousins" in a perfect Southern voice which can stand comparison with the best of Welty and O'Connor. Spencer is from Mississippi and has said elsewhere that Southern women, like French women, never stop being what they are - Southern. Maybe so, but I'm from Virginia, and I'm not that Southern, but I DO know it when I see it and this is it. My cousins were never like this, they were just on about football and cars and hunting. But if I had had cousins like this, I'd have fallen in love with them too...

[Chris Omaweng · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the easiest of reads, as it is deliberately mysterious in parts and it took some flicking back and forth on my part to determine who the narrator in each of these short stories was talking about. A satisfying read, it is a tad too sentimental for my personal liking but otherwise these are intriguing - and very human - stories.

[Helynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short novella addresses the interesting, often painful, question of just how protective and controlling a parent should be toward an adult child who is mentally disabled. The story, which takes place in Florence, is also an intriguing study in how the history, art, and culture of Italy can have a near mystic effect on its visitors—an effect that transcends intellectual acuity. The mother and daughter who come from North Carolina to Italy will need to negotiate a quickly growing Italian whirlwind. Twenty-six year old Clara Johnson suffered an accident and traumatic brain injury as a child, which has left her with the simplistic mentality of, say, a 10-year-old. But her limited perception does not stop her from being an attractive woman with adult passions. Her mother, Margaret Johnson, has brought Clara to Florence partly to separate her from a young man back home, on whom she may have had an inappropriate crush. “Every mother in some way wants a little girl who never grows up,” Margaret muses to herself. “Taken in that light, I do often feel fortunate. She is remarkably sweet, you see, and I find her a great satisfaction” (6). In the Piazza della Signoria, Clara meets Fabrizio, a handsome young store owner, and it is love at first sight for both. Now, Margaret must decide if she should permit what would seem an unlikely and risky marriage. “[Margaret] entered thus from that day, a conscious duality of existence, knowing what she should and must do and making no mention toward doing it . . . It confused her. She believed, as most Anglo-Saxons do , that she always acted logically and to the best of her ability on what she knew to be true. And now she found this quality immobilized and all her actions taken over by the simple drift of the days. She had, in fact, come face to face with Italy” (12). And Clara has come to face to face with Italy as well. Despite her limitations, she begins to learn the Italian language quickly, and easily adapts to the Italian girls’ style of dress and demeanor. Wedding plans are in the air, but Margaret is torn between wishing for her daughter’s happiness and fearing for her future . Her husband, a tobacco exec back in North Carolina, is no help. (He wanted Clara be institutionalized years earlier). The young man’s parents also will have their say before the tale is resolved.

I would not have thought this story would lend itself to a musical play, but the results are surprisingly lovely. One can watch the show in its entirety on youtube.com as a recording of a 2006 presentation from Lincoln Center.

[Caleb Hoyer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I began reading this book because of my familiarity with the musical adaptation of the first story in the collection, The Light in the Piazza. That story is fine, but underwhelming. It is a very direct story, and in that sense absolutely ripe for an adaptation that allows it to delve much deeper into the characters. Unfortunately, I found the bulk of these stories incredibly boring. In fact, while reading several of the stories I was pretty unclear about what was even happening. I’m sure part of this is due to my own disinterested reading, but whatever the reason this collection and I simply didn’t click. The White Azalea was probably my favorite story in the collection, and I also enjoyed the final story, The Cousins. But all the others, particularly Knights and Dragons, really tried my patience as a reader and I only finished them out of a sense of obligation.

[Ginny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this because I love the musical that one of the stories (the titular “Light in the Piazza”) has spawned. (Seriously, the music is gorgeous, go check it out!) The story itself was fine, maybe a little more conflicted than the musical rendition. Generally with these seven stories, though, I found them hard to follow and confusing. I felt like the characters acted in dramatic ways, but they didn’t emote much or have clear motives. I did enjoy “The Cousins” which was the only story that was written in first person; it felt more personal than the rest, so the perspective could have been a factor.

[Angelika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally I don't care for short stories. By the time I'm invested, it's over. The longest story in this book "Knights and Dragons" was difficult for me to follow. I don't completely understand the ending. I enjoyed "The Cousins" most of all the offerings. The endings of the others were all a bit mysterious. I stand by my opinion on short stories. (Notable exceptions are: This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett, and Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri).

[Ian Gere · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The life she had thought forever closed to her daughter spread out its great pastoral vista.”

The Light in the Piazza is one of my favorite musicals, so I’m very happy I read this book, in Florence no less. The writing was beautiful, and the story between Clara and her mother was extremely heartwarming. Highly recommend for a feel good read!

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this because I loved The Light in the Piazza (the movie) when I was a kid. Turns out that I actually like Elizabeth Spencer as a writer. Knights and Dragons was stunning and some of the sentences were amazing. I want to go to Florence and Rome NOW.

[Valery · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this to be hard to read/ follow and just not very interesting overall. I gave up halfway through the book and halfway through knights and dragons because I was bored.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully and sensitively written

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.2 Cute, sweet story

[Bray Holmes · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a really hard time trying to follow the plot.

[Olivia Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Giving this 4 stars cause it was so much better in comparison to the last book I read 😅

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not nearly as good as I was hoping, though I liked the last story. I couldn’t even understand what the point was in Knights and Dragons, and that was the longest one. Glad to be done.

[K Khire · Rating 3 out of 5]

The bookend stories captivated me most - The Light in the Piazza and The Cousins.

[Jennifer Johnston]

Liked the light in the piazza and the cousins. The rest was a bit lacking for my taste.

[robin friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Spencer's Italian Stories

Over a long literary career, Elizabeth Spencer (1921 -- 2019) wrote stories and novels set in the American South, where she lived most of her life, and in Italy, where she lived for three years. In 2021, the Library of America published a volume of Spencer's novels and stories. edited by Michael Gorra, as part of its ongoing effort to present the best of American writing

I remember during adolescence seeing the film version of "The Light in the Piazza" (1962) at about the time it was released, and the film has stayed with me. It was only now that I read Elizabeth Spencer's novella on which the film is based. "The Light in the Piazza" (1960) has become Spencer's most famous work and is the basis for a celebrated Tony-award winning musical in addition to the movie. It is available in several sources, including the LOA volume and this earlier book, "The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales" (1996) which collects seven stories, including the title story, that Spencer wrote with Italian settings over her long writing life. I wanted to read Spencer's story at last both for myself and to see if it would be suitable for a book group.

Spencer expressed reservations over how "The Light in the Piazza" came to overshadow her other writing. At one point she called the story an "albatross". Still, "The Light in The Piazza" is a special work which deserves the accolades it has received. The novel is set largely in Florence and tells the story of a well-to-do American woman, Margaret Johnson, who travels to Italy with her twenty-six year old daughter, Clara. As a result of a childhood accident, Clara's mental and emotional development were stunted and she has the mind of a girl of ten. A young Italian man, Fabrizio, becomes attracted to Clara for her beauty, sweetness, and innocence. The attraction blossoms into romance and Margaret must decide how to deal with the Italian suitor and his family and with her own husband, an executive for a cigarette manufacturer in North Carolina. The story is beautifully and lyrically told.

The remaining six stories in the book also explore American Southern women in Italy and how their experiences in Italy affect their view of themselves and of others. Of the six stories, four, "The White Azalea", "The Visit". "The Pincian Gate" and "Wisteria" are almost vignettes. I want to discuss briefly the two remaining longer stories.

Spencer intended "Knights and Dragons"(1965) as a companion piece to "Light in the Piazza" . It is a difficult, dense work, in its internal and external depictions which has never achieved the popularity of the earlier story. The main character, Martha Ingram, is pursuing a career in Rome following a divorce from her domineering, academic husband. She is tormented by memories and by communications from her ex-husband and his friends. She has an affair in Rome with a married American economist, Jim Wilbourne. Spencer describes how ultimately Martha frees herself from her demons and is able to pursue her life. In many ways, this is a beautiful, elaborately written story. It is dark in character and demands close reading.

The final story in this collection "The Cousins" tells of five distantly related young people from a small Alabama town who travel together on a trip to Italy. The story moves back and forth in time and concentrates on the brief romantic relationship between Ella Mason and two of her cousins, Ben and Eric. It is a tale of self-discovery as Ella comes at last to understand her past.

Some readers are disappointed with the stories that follow "The Light in the Piazza". These stories lack the immediate appeal of the title story and are introspective and thickly textured, with lengthy descriptive and meandering sentences and paragraphs. In particular, "Kinghts and Dragons" is involved and difficult. I found it and its companion stories ultimately rewarding. Spencer is a prose stylist who explores the heart of her characters in an Italian setting and their efforts to understand themselves.

I enjoyed reading "The Light in the Piazza" at last, years after I saw the movie and to read something of Spencer's other work as well. This collection of stories would be a challenging, but worthwhile selection for a book group. The primary appeal of this book is for individual readers to reflect upon and to enjoy.

Robin Friedman