In Italian, stella fortuna means "lucky star." But as author Juliet Grames’s observes early in this, her debut novel:
"What a terrifying thing to call a little girl. There's no better way to bring down the Evil Eye than to brag about your good fortune; a name like Stella Fortuna was just asking for trouble."
And indeed in the course of her very long life, as related by her granddaughter, Stella seems doomed rather than blessed. From her childhood in the remote Calabrian village of Ievoli, at the toe of Italy's peninsular boot; to the last, lost years in a small white house in suburban Connecticut, tended by family who never understood her or, at the last, even remembered the person she was — Stella dodges strange and horrible deaths, and battles the subjugation of her life to the control of her father, her husband, her sons.
The author drew the inspiration for her story from her own, difficult grandmother, and suggests that many of us have similar stories of "difficult women" in our families. Perhaps we need to "unpack" these stories and discover what lies behind the difficulty. Perhaps, like Stella, these women were just fighting for the right to control their own lives, to be recognized as a person with dreams and ambitions beyond what their families expected or demanded.
Click HERE to read the * review from Publishers Weekly.
Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.
Click HERE to listen to an interview with the author from lithub.com.
Click HERE to read the review from Criminal Element.com
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