Nicola DeRobertis-Theye

3.5 for originality in premise. Gabriele is working at a bookstore in Berkeley where she attends school, when requests start to come in from Giordana Vietri in Italy for very esoteric titles. They are always typewriter-typed, always paid, but very vague beyond that. After graduating, breaking up with a boyfriend, and working at the bookstore for a few years, she decides to travel for awhile and ends up in Italy, where her mother was from, and where she spent summers from 11 to 15. She looks show more up Vietri, but no one is home at the address she had. After inquiring with a neighbor and a local bartender, and receiving a book under false pretenses intended for someone who knows him, she becomes a little obsessed and starts seeking more invasive ways of locating him: requesting old records, stealing a utilities bill, seeking people who knew him, visiting his home town. This all turns up empty, but becomes merely the premise or backdrop for some deeper soul searching: reuniting with her Italian family - her mother's family, and confronting her own past: an only child in a strained home - her mother was diagnosed with and institutionalized for schizophrenia, which hangs over Gabrielle's own head like the sword of Damocles, especially as she has reached the age of onset. Is her obsession with Vietri a manifestation? It is hard to watch her become a little self-destructive in her methods and motives, though ultimately the search puts her to rights. Loved the Italian setting, though it definitely contributes to an 'outsider' vibe in trying to understand Gabriele. show less

Pulled me along, really enjoyable. I felt I was traveling alongside Gabriele, getting to know her family, feeling the Roman sun on my skin and wondering her uncertainties with her.

The review in the New York Times sounded promising: a young woman is intrigued by a long-distance customer of the bookstore where she works, who orders long lists of esoteric books to be shipped to him in Italy. It occurs to her (her life doesn't seem to have much active direction) to try to find him when she's doing her solo world tour (nice to have the leisure and money to just fly around the globe when you're bored and discontented). She resists engagement with her family, except if they show more might be useful. She's worried she might become schizophrenic as her own mother did when exactly her age. That's pretty much it. It's a whole lot of pretentious brooding and navel-gazing, all the "coming of age," "who am I really?" stuff I found tedious when I was twenty-five, occasionally punctuated by equally dull and mechanical sex. I was mainly interested in the old Italian customer, who proves elusive, leaving behind a notebook written in Arabic crammed with maps and notes, which the narrator (we eventually learn her name is Gabriele) obtains under false pretenses. Gabriele sits around while her cousin's friends help translate the contents, and she isn't even interested in that, daydreaming and doodling while the friends seriously parse out the text. Halfway through the not-very-long book, the jaded, weary tone just lost me. Gabriele herself admits she was most interested in meeting Signore Vietri, maybe talking about the books he ordered, and when he isn't immediately producible, slumps back into her ennui. So did I. I don't know what happens after that, but I did try, and failed to care. show less

I tried, I really did....... maybe if i was a bit more intellectual i'd have had the wherewithal to finish?
Interesting story of a U.S. bookseller, and her mission to track down an Italian customer of eclectic books. Dry in parts, but it was the authors wit that kept me from waving the white flag sooner!