Product Description

Southern Italy 1968. The ancient village of Torre Saracena, a huddle of shuttered houses and sunbaked streets, perches on a rocky promontory above the sea. For centuries this insular community has closed its ranks against everyone outside its walls; even the inhabitants of the nearest town are classified as foreigners. After marrying her Italian boyfriend Lorenzo at 18, Vida and her family share their time between the bustle of Rome and the tranquility of Torre Saracena. Despite initial misgivings from the locals, they are soon accepted into the community and spend twenty years living la bella vita with the villagers and hippy eccentrics who become their trusted friends. From feuding and festivals, through to topless riots and brushes with the Neapolitan Mafia, life in Torre Saracena is high drama on a small stage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #191110 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
"'This lovely book is a piece of tender sociology, charting the changes made when free love and fast food came to a community that had ignored the world for centuries'. Adam Mars-Jones, Writer and Critic 'Beautifully written, often very moving. Vida writes both as an in- and an outsider with equal conviction.' Bernice Rubens"

The Sunday Times
An enjoyable read that brings both the people and the time back to life in all their gritty glory.

The Daily Express, July 20, 2002
Delightful... A heart-warming dip into colourful, chaotic Italian village life.

Customer Reviews

As close as you can get without moving in yourself.
I was given this book & thought it was going to be your usual "foreigner in local Italian town reprises vignettes for us to laugh at".....how wrong could I be. Vida's lack of sentimentality, willingness to report truthfully (even if she sometimes comes out of it less than glowingly), and keen details make this a book to treasure. Each chapter reads like a complete story so you can pick it up and put it down - and in fact I had to - it is so rich and evocative - I LOVED the cinema descriptions and stories - reading it was like being there - and this is certiaily the closest I would ever get to this experience. You have to be living it to be able to write like this.

The real Italy
This book brought alive to me the Southern Italy I know so well. It is
vivid, passionate and sensual -- and, as one of the reviews on the cover
stated "tender". In its evocation of the people, rituals and daily rhythms
of a small Italian coastal town, discovered, and then loved, by outsiders it
has the quality of Italian films -- especially Cinema Paradiso. Torre
Saraceno's own outdoor cinema, overlooking the sea, its soundtrack overlaid
by crickets, the enthusiastic participation of the locals in the twists and
turns of the films, is now burnt on my memory. I laughed aloud and was moved
in equal parts as the book traces the change of destiny in a tiny community
over the course of 20 years, when it is embraced by the influx of tourists
-- welcome for their money, but ultimately catalysts for unforeseen change. Because of the time span, it offers a broader picture than A Year in Provence or Driving Over Lemons.
Vida Adamoli, please now write about Rome -- where, you tell us, you also
lived for 20 years. I know it will be a warm, affectionate, intimate, funny
picture -- very different from the tourist guide trio of St Peter's, the
Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum.

wonderful summer or winter reading
Vida Adamoli's description of Italy is vivid and loving. Whether she is writing about the streets of Rome or the hippie houseparty in Torre Saracena, the smells and sounds rise out of the pages to meet you.
Many English people fantasise about living in a foreign country and getting to know 'the locals'. With Vida, you feel she has actually succeeded. Her sister visits her in Italy, but Vida, married to an Italian, becomes part of the town.
Even the hippies that take over a derelict building in town are woven into the fabric of this enchanting story.
But even as they are all admiring the Paradise they have found, their very presence is destroying it and admitting the 20th century to a medieval village.
I enjoyed this book enormously and I would recommend it to anyone, either on holiday or at home.