Lemon Blossoms
This dual point-of-view novel (told by Angelica and her mother) relates the story of Angelica Domenico, a 19th-century Italian girl who grows into a woman struggling to define herself in relation to familial and cultural expectations in addition to her own religious calling. A physically damaging accident when she is young, coupled with an early introduction to her mother’s gory, frightening and sometimes deadly occupation of midwifery, inspires Angelica to seek refuge from the life of wife and mother, which she desperately fears. Instead, she turns to the convent, a vocation her parents oppose, convinced she is seeking to flee her life and will someday find love and follow a traditional path.
This is an odd book that feels like a translation, though it is not. This comes from the language being simplistic and sometimes stilted, as well as the structure being unlike a conventional plot. Rather than having an over-arching destination, it reads more like a series of loosely connected vignettes. I found the main character’s fears to be true to life, but the non-sexual way she loses her physical virginity – a key plot element – was a stretch of the imagination. Some of the descriptions in the beginning are beautiful, transporting the reader to rural Italy, but this doesn’t hold up throughout the novel. The tedium of the overall story plus its unusual writing style made this a tough read that didn’t live up to the promise of the premise.
