CHILDREN OF THIS LAND
Serafina Crolla
(Luath, £8.99)
Crolla is a surname known to all in Edinburgh. One of the most famous Scottish-Italian families, the extended clan, originating from the area around the town of Picinisco in the Lazio region, has helped the people of the city to forge a connection with Italy through its love of quality cuisine.
Serafina, daughter of a shepherd from the foothills of the Abruzzi Mountains, has strengthened that bond in two previous books set in the region of her birth – The Wee Italian Girl and Domenica – with Children of This Land rounding off the trilogy.
Set in and around Picinisco in the 1950s, and inspired by an epitaph on the tomb of a mother of 19 children, it’s a poignant but life-affirming series of vignettes covering a decade in which a lively and happy family home gradually empties – the children hopefully destined for better lives, but each taking something of the spirit of the thriving household away with them.
Vincenzo and Matilda Valente live with 16 children, aged from two to 24, and three grandparents, all crammed into one house in the Valle de Comino, not far from where the battle of Monte Cassino took place.
Their way of life is one that hasn’t changed for countless generations.
They live off the land, and every day is a back-breaking struggle to put food on the table.
With so many mouths to feed, they work the fields of the local landowner, Don Stefano Tarttaglia, as well.
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As hard as it is to get by, they enjoy the simple pleasures life has to offer, and benefit from living in a tightly-knit rural community: “The bodies of the men were scrawny, sun-baked and dark.
“Their teeth were black from smoking rough tobacco. But if they were in good health, there was always a twinkle in their eyes and if there was a laugh to be had they were ready for it.”
But there have been great changes since the war. The Valentes know that at least some of their large brood are likely to range far afield to find employment, and some may even emigrate. Their hopes for their children’s future are tempered with the sad prospect of separation.
Crolla follows the Valente children as they grow to adulthood and find their separate paths.
The older boys, Andrea, Francesco and Pietro, are old enough to think about finding wives and settling down, but where? Francesco has met a man in a tavern who opened a fish and chip shop in Scotland and paints an enticing picture of the prospects that could await the brothers there.
Teenager Teresa goes to work as a maid for Donna Tarttaglia and shows how skilfully a strong-willed girl can play the hand she’s dealt. Maria, the opposite of Teresa in every way, longs to become a nun and help the poor in Africa.
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Crolla clearly understands that she needs to strike a balance between idealising the Italian peasant way of life and acknowledging its hardship.
She shows no such reservations about the food, though, celebrating at every opportunity the spring fruit trees, the new season’s broccoletti, the pickled vegetables and hanging meats in the pantry and the wholesome rituals of cooking for a large family or shelling peas in the shade of a fig tree.
Her prose has a warmth and simplicity that complements its characters’ lives, conveying an affection that could convince you she was writing about her own family, and an ambivalence that reflects their feelings about a land they love but are no longer certain has anything to offer its young.
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