Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Each morning Livia Moretti makes her way from an apartment overlooking Florence’s famous Duomo to a nearby café, where she drinks espresso and reads the newspaper. To the crowds of tourists who pass by, snapping selfies, nothing about Livia will be memorable. She is simply an old lady. They walk on without knowing the part she played in ensuring the future of this beautiful city. And to Livia now, those dark days feel very far away too.
But today, when she opens the paper, she sees a name she has not heard for a long time. A name that will bring memories flooding back of Nazi troops marching through the city and the dangers she faced as a young woman, carrying out secret missions for the resistance.
Isabella Bellucci.
A siren of the silver screen, Isabella cultivated all the right connections to ensure her rise to stardom. But when Rome falls to the Nazis, Isabella is suddenly faced with the choice between protecting herself, and all she has worked for, or sacrificing everything to save the man she loves.
As the war rages across Europe, a terrible misunderstanding causes the fates of Isabella and Livia to become forever intertwined. And each woman must decide what they’re willing to risk, to protect the ones they hold dear from a brutal enemy.
In the last few weeks or so all the historical fiction books that I have read have been set in Italy during World War Two. Some were brilliant and some not so good but Debbie Rix’s new novel The Italian Girls was excellent from start to finish. Without question the research undertaken was impeccable and you could feel the genuine love and interest that Debbie had for her subject matter and themes coming through in the writing. Dare I admit it, but I was becoming slightly weary of reading about Italy during the war and was thinking this book will be quite similar to what I have recently read. Thankfully this wasn’t the case at all and instead of me becoming despondent reading of the same country and era with information I had already read in other books, the author brought a fresh new light to the subject matter combined with lots of secrets, mystery and collaboration. Whether it be for the good or the bad time would only tell the further I delved into the story.
The Italian Girls is based on the real life experiences of Italian women during the war when Italy was under the rule of Mussolini and his Fascist party and then in turn the Germans invaded and welded their power. The character of Livia is an amalgamation of two university students who worked for the resistance in Florence. The character of Isabella is based on the movie star Maria Denis who was caught between the Fascist authorities who ran the film industry in Rome and her devotion to film director and resistance member Luchino Viconti. Having finished the book, I now want to go and research/read more about these women and the work of women in general for the resistance.
Debbie has painted a fascinating picture of two women, worlds apart in terms of backgrounds and social positions yet there are innumerable tangible connections between the pair throughout the book. The two female main characters never ever physically meet. Yes, towards the very end there is a passing by or an intersecting of sorts but they never actually physically meet and sit down and talk to each other about their experiences. So there are two storylines running concurrently with similar themes but they run so well alongside each other offering two very different perspectives of the war in Italy from a woman’s viewpoint.
Normally if there are two characters in a book that you feel are destined to meet, you are just desperately hoping you quickly get to that point where the meeting can occur and you can move forward and then other plots can develop. But I didn’t feel like that at all with this book and I mean that in the very best and most positive ways. It wasn’t a negative at all that Livia and Isabella never connected with each other, I found it incredible that both storylines were so expertly executed. That neither never lost pace or that one was more dominant than the other or that one became dull and boring whilst the other steamed ahead with action. It takes a skilled author to make this happen but Debbie Rix pulled it off to perfection. She takes you on an exhilarating, stressful journey where danger lurks behind every corner and one false move can see you left for dead.
Livia Moretti is in her 90’s and every day she follows the same routine as she finds her way to her local café and takes out her magnifying glass to sit and read the paper. But one day she sees a headline of an obituary for a woman and this sparks many memories. This was the prologue to the story and by the time we reached the end we return to Livia in the present day I had even forgotten the book had started this way as I became so caught up in everything that was happening back in the past but I loved how the beginning and end connected together.
The book is then split into four parts and they really did feel distinct from each other. Livia lives in Florence with her parents and is a university student. Her father is a liberal lawyer who is an anti fascist and always wants to do his best to help anyone in need especially as the authorities are enacting even more laws and ridiculous rules against those who have done nothing at all. War is raging on and Italy is not faring so well. Livia’s fellow university student Cosimo has gone away to fight in Russia and she worries about him. The reader can see from the outset that there is a connection between the pair but what will become of it I wasn’t that sure. Livia is left with her best friend Elena and life continues on as best it can but when Livia hears what her father has been participating in she is determined to help and do her bit for the war and so her work for the resistance begins.
I loved Livia as a character, I thought she was strong, feisty and determined. Time and time again she put herself out there and in danger but she did so willingly and selflessly as she tried to maintain such strength and concentration to do any resistance work that she felt would benefit the overall cause. I thought it was great that she went against her mother and didn’t stay stuck in the countryside outside the city with her. Instead she remained in the city doing work with her father. The details of their underground network were well researched and I thought it was just so fascinating that people could be so creative with so little and that anything they had they gave up in order to help those in need. The resistance as a whole in Italy, and as shown here in Florence and Rome, were brave and worthy people. Livia was never one cut out for the homemaker life she always yearned for challenges, danger and excitement and with everything that unfolded she certainly got that. I definitely preferred Livia as a character as opposed to Isabella. She’s always prepared to give her life for what she believes in. I’ve mentioned up above how both storylines as a whole were excellent with one not better than the other but I didn’t feel that way about the characters.
Isabella is a movie star at the top of her game. She lives at Villa Rosa with her mother, Giovanna who had come from poverty in Argentina. Isabella’s career provides all the income and as the industry is controlled by the Fascist government she finds herself attending parties and gatherings where she must be on her best behaviour and engage with them wherever possible and the Germans too when they make a stronger arrival on the scene. But to be honest I think she enjoyed all this interaction and hobnobbing and attention with and from the elite as she was so accustomed to it. Her associations/relations with the Fascist authorities were a necessary evil but this really meant that she stopped seeing the world through other people’s eyes. It was like she was immune from the suffering that ordinary people were experiencing and also how the Jews were being persecuted. Isabella’s naivety, and in some instances I would say her stupidity, really started to irritate me. How could she continue to live in this gilded film star world that she couldn’t see was crumbling around her and one where she didn’t comprehend the extent of what the Germans were doing? She was like a puppy wanting to do everything right when it came to film director Vincenzo. Her infatuation with him knew no bounds but I thought he was using her and this love would not be reciprocated.
It’s only in the last two parts that I saw any sort of turn around for Isabella as it’s like the wool is pulled from her eyes and finally she wakes up and starts doing her bit. Things don’t always go her way even though all that silliness I thought surrounded her in the beginning had disappeared and she does put herself out there and on the line. She uses her connections well but still there was that one event that she instigated through jealousy that I never agreed with which only led to repercussions for someone else. It never sat right with me. Isabella finds herself trapped in more than ways than one in a powerful struggle and she does start to step outside of her comfort zone yet it is a fine line she is threading. Will it all backfire on her? Can the work that both Livia and Isabella undertake pay off or will it all be futile?
I really enjoyed The Italian Girls and think many readers of historical fiction that have a particular interest in World War Two will do so aswell.The fact it is inspired by true events only adds more depth and flavour to it . This is a gripping and beautiful read and one I am glad I took the time to sit and enjoy it.
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