In this novel, there’s a family villa in a mostly abandoned town in Umbria. It sits atop a hill and in it live the three Serafino widows and their nearly 100-year-old mother, Ida. Their historian nephew/grandson Hugh is about to come to stay in the cottage on the grounds fora few months.
There’s a problem, of course. The cottage, left to Hugh by his mother Hazel, is inhabited by Elisa Tomassi, who claims that Aldo Serafino, father of the widows, bequeathed the cottage to her family just after the end of World War II. Aldo never returned home from the war; wounds are deep, but not as deep as the family’s secrets.
Hugh is a family member, but also an outsider, an American interloper. He is the author of a successful book describing abandoned Italian villages and towns, but it is his own abandonment, through death, by the women of his life that the novel really looks into. His burgeoning friendship with Elisa uncovers a shared history they didn’t know existed, and might just offer hope for the future.
Valetto is an intriguing invention. Most inhabitants departed after the war or after earthquakes and landslides left buildings precarious and livelihoods at stake. As Hugh wanders the buildings, in childhood reminiscences and in the present day, we see tables abandoned mid-meal, possessions left as if the owner were just about to return. It’s fascinating and haunting.
The story leads to a fabulous, dramatic and righteous denouement at Ida’s 100th birthday party where the evils of the past are confronted and the future faced. The Serafino women are warm, weird, grouchy and a great deal of fun, offering a lovely lightness of tone to this very atmospheric story.
Return to Valetto is a beautiful tale, evoking an Italy full of sunshine, pear trees, terraces on which to drink wine. Its dark history is confronted through the united front of a fascinating family. This is my book of the year so far.
