I did write a review,altho I keep finding diamonds in this and am still reading the first part again,trying to catch up on the classics (I was never that good at italian/latin translations,fortunately otherwise I might have become a professor of classics like WOODY).

Ik vond dit geen leuk boek. Er zitten stukken in over seksualiteit die ik ontzettend bizar vindt. De vader van de dochter die beschrijft hoe hij zich voor kan stellen hoe zij seks heeft met iemand... ook absurd vond ik de scene waarin de vader de vagina/ het schaamhaar van zijn dochter aanraakt wanneer zij in het ziekenhuis ligt. Deze momenten gaven het boek voor mij een hele nare nasmaak.

Different. Interesting. Looking forward to read more by this author, and Knox College professor!

I really enjoyed Hellenga's first book, The Sixteen Pleasures, but this one... It rambled, dragged, and got bogged down. There were whole chapters I read wondering, "what has this to do with anything?" They didn't expose theme, move the plot forward or show any relevant character development. And the characters... really unrealistic. The man has an adulterous affair with a woman and 7 years later with her college-aged daughter, and nobody raises an eyebrow, not even the wronged husband/father. The mother abandons her two daughters, one only twelve, to study with nuns, and later requires the money that was needed for same daughter's college fees to enter the nunnery - apparently they won't take her poor. And the family accepts it without question or anger. We don't even see her struggling with the decision. Love is messy, it makes demands on us, and responsibility is a bitch sometimes, but there's none of that here.
It's not a complete loss- There are some passages that are thought-provoking and beautifully written, and the concept is interesting even if the characters aren't.

Well written and paced. I liked the descriptions of food, the classical references, the attempt to represent grief and forgiveness . Yet I also felt challenged by the protagonist's character--challenged to maintain sympathy with/for him--at times, which I suppose is part of the point of reading anything, ever. The middle-aged, male perspective from which much of the novel is written, even when the narrative switches to the daughter's point of view, was alien and off-putting, especially in its sexual politics. Nonetheless, worth the read.

Beautiful and achingly sad.

This is a very sweet story of what happens to an Illinois family when the eldest of three daughters is killed in a terrorist bomb attack in the Bologna, Italy train station. It has humor, love, passion, and sadness. I loved it.

Not one of my favorites at all. Difficult to read and barely maintained my interest.

I loved so much about this book.... Its depictions of Italy were so visual and sensual. There are several scenes that I still remember and a smile comes to my face. One is that of preparation of dinner in an Italian friend's kitchen. It is a sumptuous sensual mouth-watering scene of making the pasta and discussing how much food is like a beautiful woman or some such lucious metaphor.... Another wonderful scene is the description of a friend who deals in oriental carpets. When a shipment gets damaged, he orders that all the carpets be spread out on a huge outdoor space and then be washed and dried. Wonderful Imagery! I loved this book - even the bats in the house back in the midwest. It is so rich in imagery and delight. He's a good writer and he knows Italy - or at least enough about Italy to convince me!

Until the end, this book is a lightweight. It tries to be something bigger and more meaningful , especially as it heavily relies on classical allusions to Homeric and Ovidian poetry, and a protagonist who often dwells in epicurean and philosophical realms. It is cultivated, a little cool, and more than a bit pedantic. But the novel begins as a quaint, forgettable story centering on Gerald, a classics professor at a small midwestern liberal arts college. His family has been torn apart due to the death of his oldest daughter in a terrorist strage in Bologna, Italy in 1980 and he appears to be in the full throes of a midlife crisis. The narrative switches occasionally to the point of view of Sara, the middle daughter, as she adjusts to postcollege life in Chicage and continues to deal with the death of her sister and the dissolution of her family.

And then, in Part Two, this novel transforms into something close to great. Actually, I think the heavily emotional response I had to the last section is coloring my review, but Hellenga's skill for causing catharses is near great, anyway. Grace and forgiveness emerge (but not in a completely hackneyed way) as Gerald attends the trial of the neo-fascists who were responsible for the bombing. I was struggling not to sob, as Gerald slowly befriends the father of the young woman who placed the bomb at the Bologna train station,and eventually confronts the woman herself, a week after she begins serving her life sentence. One of the problems with this work is that Hellenga forces too many of his themes, motifs, and symbols on us, and seems to lack the subtlety of more skilled authors.
I fear this novel is forgettable, though, and is only a shadow of a better novel.

It could have been a good book, but too many distractions in the story.

Best story I have read so far this year.