Lost Hearts in Italy by Andrea Lee

Lost Hearts in Italy Reviews

• 
  Suzanne

  Lost Hearts in Italy, despite the unfortunate title, had a first sentence that made me tuck the book under my arm and head for the library check-out desk.
  
  The call comes three or four times a year. Always in the morning, when Mira’s husband and children have left the house, and she is at work in her study, in the dangerous company of words – words that are sometimes docile companions and at other times bolt off like schizophrenic lovers and leave you stranded on a street corner somewhere.
  
  I noticed later that on Goodreads this book has an average rating of only 2.85 stars and wondered if I’d made a mistake adding this to my huge to-read list, but reading onward, I realized this book has simply not found its audience yet. This book is too good for the chick-lit like title and cover with which it’s been saddled and which have perhaps steered it toward readers who just don’t appreciate it.
  
  A domestic drama that reminded me a little (but only a little) of Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth because both deal with histories of people whose lives are changed by a random encounter that leads to an affair, and both are told in strategically chosen fragments and time shifts that allow the disconnected parts to tell the whole story. I thought this was the better book, BTW. Nick and Mira are young Americans, recently married, who move to Rome for Nick’s work, excited to be embarking on an adventure in a romantic city. Wealthy Italian businessman Zenin is the serpent in their garden , although Mira allowing herself to slide down a slippery slope is certainly not blameless for subsequent events, and her motivation, or lack thereof, in embarking on an affair might be as much a function of her personality than anything resembling an actual reason.
  
  Nick and Mira are captivated by Italy. Mira refers to herself at one point as Italian, even though the puzzled person to whom she is speaking knows that “this girl was most definitely American,” and Nick realizes in a present day sub-chapter that, regardless of the fact that he and his second family now live in London, “in a cloister of international schools and clubs and the expatriates’ wary deepening consciousness of the culture outside the walls,” . . .“only once . . . could he settle in a foreign country and have it colonize him.” However, it seems to be their foreignness or perhaps their naivete that is in some part responsible for their troubles.
  
  The unique structure of Lost Hearts worked well for telling the story in an efficient way and for fully illuminating the characters that evolve into well-rounded, complex people seen from different angles. Each chapter is a triptych arrangement centered around the experiences of one of the three lovers in the triangle. Each chapter begins with a contemporary section (2004 or 2005), followed by a section flashing back to the 1980s in Italy where the affair took place, and ends with a short observation by one of the peripheral characters in that chapter’s action: a waiter or tradesperson, a friend, acquaintance, relative, or business colleague, that shoots an extra little bit of light on the relationships and the environment that give the events some context.
  
  When I was half-way through it, I recommended this book to a Italophile friend who has been to Italy many times, because I thought she would particularly enjoy the specificity of the settings, the mention of exact places, landmarks, and environments with which she’d be familiar, and that’s always fun to find in a book. I didn’t realize until after that conversation how much this place-based book also addresses the cultural differences between Italy and America, especially those of a few decades ago, and how the attitudes, about society, class, wealth, religion, gender roles and relationships between men and women, define the landscape as much as the geographic landmarks. I was reminded (again, only a little) of Henry James’ themes of the innocence of Americans, as a newer species, against a backdrop of and in conflict with old corrupt Europeans. It’s also about being an outsider and the impact that that status can have on one’s destiny.
  
  In one small scene, Zenin attends a funeral in 2005 in his small Italian town for five acquaintances killed in a plane crash.
  
  Meanwhile, the five coffins are carried out of the church, and as they make their last journey something like a swell of unanimity passes through the crowd, something far stronger than the response evoked by the cardinal. The mood, the shared certainty beyond grief that for a moment unites the people at the funeral is this: the superstitious emotion of a small city, rooted in time and place, toward those who dreamed, as everyone in the provinces does, of leaving and going to the remotest corners of the world; and how it was the foreignness of the place, more than chance or destiny or divine whim, that cast them out of the sky. It was the strangeness that destroyed them.
  
  And there’s family as a place to belong, the ones that grow organically and sustain us, creating a bulwark against the strangeness. Nick’s young daughter from his second marriage has trouble understanding why her half-sister’s half-brothers are not also her brothers. "They’re our sister’s brothers, and that makes them part of us. I think families are like spiderwebs: they stretch all over the place where you don’t expect them. "
  
  After their split, when Nick and Mira are settling custody matters, they find themselves making the old jokes about their adopted country, reverting to the shorthand people with histories have with one another.
  
  And both Nick and Mira give a snort of laughter, catch themselves up short in annoyance, and flash a look at each other that is full of deep knowledge, the instinctive affinity one has for one’s own country, one’s own people. They look at each other with anger, with contempt, and yet with the automatic relief and anticipation that a traveler feels upon catching the first glimpse of the coastline of his native land from the deck of an ocean liner.
  
  While Mira is certainly not blameless in all that happened, she is clearly out of her element during her youth in the unfamiliar cultural terrain, but gains some perspective after three decades. Her journal written in 2005 about a family trip back to Rome relates the experience of her “coming home” to that fateful place.
  
  I walked behind, my feet fitting themselves to the familiar irregularly of the old stones. I noticed – as I never did when I was younger and more easily awed, and this scene was part of my daily landscape – that the color of the ruins is weathered into a soft organic hue that runs from living gray, to a tawny lion color, to deep ocher red. And the decayed edges of the monuments looked like wounds. Huge extravagant wounds. On this trip I have to admit that something happened: for the first time I looked on Rome with a certain compassion and fellowship, a city maimed by time.”
  
  She seems willing to forgive herself here, as someone maimed by time, as we all are.
• 
  Khaliah Williams

  In some ways this is a really lovely book. Most people who read it are usually turned off by what I have heard referred to as the author's pretentious nature. Underneath it all, this is a sad love story told by a very educated woman, and maybe her education infiltrates the narrative a bit too much, but you can't deny compelling prose. Not my favorite by Andrea Lee, but a good book just the same.
• 
  Erin

  I picked this up on a whim for a song at Strand without doing any of the advance research I usually do before deciding to buy or read a book. A big leap of faith for me that happily paid off, despite my initial weariness when I'd finally checked the reviews here for it after getting home and finding they were less than stellar (in the 2s!). I don't know what most people were expecting, but this is very much what it advertised itself as: a character-driven story about a failed marriage between two American expats in Rome. And it was lovely, if sad and frustrating (why did Mira throw everything away?) but entirely human. This line, right after Mira begins her affair, broke me: "Is that all it is? Then I can do it. I can be two people."
  The shifts in time and narrative were easy to follow, as they were all named/dated at the beginning of the chapters. I hated Zenin, but you were supposed to, and his hatefulness is given a thorough background and explanation. It didn't hurt that Mira was from Philadelphia, and that there were one or two X-Files references, too. Overall I really liked it, even if some of the sentence fragmants annoyed me after a while.
• 
  Catherine

  I find it very hard to get invested in the trials and tribulations of the very rich, which no doubt explains why the sarcastic mantra running through my head as I read this novel was, 'oh, poor babies, life so hard.'
  
  The protagonists of the novel are a Harvard-educated, white financier from New England, a Harvard-educated African-American writer from Philadelphia, and a street-smart Italian businessman who is obscenely wealthy, getting on in years, and, let's face it, a complete whore. The three intersect - the first two marrying, the latter two having an affair, the first two divorcing, the latter two splitting up - and while Lee offers some beautiful gems of social observation throughout the book, it's hard to have a lot of sympathy for people whose emotional lives are so cushioned by wealth. Were the same triangle observed in some working-class town in, say, Michigan, I can't help thinking it would be a more interesting read, if for no other reason than no one would have the means to run away from the situations they'd created, or to bribe officials and doctors and cab drivers, or to buy the yacht or the hotel room or the dress that would let them play a desperate part.
  
  The most interesting thing about the novel, for me, was the stylistic choice to have a one-time narrator end each chapter with their perspective on events: the bag boy at the grocery store; the woman selling suits on Rodeo Drive; the neighbor who reads tarot cards; the woman with the vegetable store. Through them is the best message of the book delivered - that no matter how absorbing you think your problems are, you are a mere fleeting interruption to most people around you.
  
  
• 
  Janice

  Andrea Lee once again provides an interesting perspective that is quite grey and makes the reader think. It is very difficult to pass definitive judgement on some of the characters. She delves and stays in sensitive areas no matter how much it may hurt. Nothing is candy coated or fantasized.
  
  One of the reasons why I enjoy her books is because her African-American female characters are not stereotypes. And, her writing style is beautiful.
• 
  Mai Alsharif مي الشريف

  I feel sorry to say I DONT LIKE IT..because of the way the novel jumps back and forth every 3 pages
• 
  Andrew

  As some of this very entertaining novel is set in a very familiar part of Italy at a very familiar time to me...as an expat Englishman in the Veneto in the mid-80s...I really enjoyed its dissection of 'il bel paese' in all its sordid, Machiavellian detail!.
  But Andrea Lee's sharp-nailed novel is more than that! It fairly sizzles with sexual shenanigans, classless Eurotrash, tasty food, high-tariff fashion, callous betrayals, cunning subterfuges...& jagged characters from different cultures & blood-lines who clash, crash & burn in a variety of human dilemmas & 'romantic' attachments over 30 years & more.
  A good read indeed: I must read more of this American author soon.
• 
  Joy Martin

  ‘Cities are like clothes,‘ writes Mira, the journalist wife in this story of a young American couple living in Rome. ‘Each has its own style, its own fabric and weight, each transforms you…’ Clothes play an important part in Mira’s seduction by Zenin – ‘tall, thin and stiff-moving…like a dancing scarecrow in a musical.’ But, as his deckhand observes: ‘My boss Zenin, is old – but he gets a lot of pussy. That’s how it is when you’re that rich.’
  As Zenin exerts his hold over her, and her marriage erodes, so, too, does Mira’s sense of herself. Superbly written. Compulsive reading.
  
• 
  GyulReadsBooks

  Andrea Lee is an extremely talented writer and that is what compelled me to pick up another of her novels after first reading Red Island House. This novel however - is not as compelling as that one.
  
  In a lot of ways this book was very unique. Lots of interesting viewpoints and shifts in timeline and narrators. Still, for as much backstory as we received on the multiple characters in this story, they lacked depth. The story itself lacked depth. I tried to stick it out, since from experience I know that sometimes a book that's difficult to get into will pull you in right at the midpoint and I was thoroughly disappointed.
• 
  K.M.

  I'm not sure how I came across this book, but I got it because it had "Italy" in the title (I love all things Italian). It's a great book! This author did something unique (for me so far, anyway): at the end of each chapter, she added a paragraph that gives a perspective on the events that just transpired from the standpoint of one of the minor bystander-type characters. EXCELLENT. I loved the story and how she told it.
• 
  Susan Kinnevy

  I liked this novel of three souls who lose themselves, then find themselves again, lacking any real understanding of themselves. I loved the way they were described by random people they came into contact with, each of whom saw them in a slightly different light. I also loved the descriptions of Italy, they brought me back to another time in my life and a somewhat similar path.
• 
  Greta

  American writer, Andrea Lee, starts her story with a bi-racial marriage between Harvard graduates on their campus, then proceeds to Rome for work, love and play. All goes well for a couple years as they adjust to being residents of Italy. Then the story goes astray with the main characters. Believable and interesting, I look forward to reading more of her writing.
• 
  Sandra

  I did like this quite a bit, but I think my favorite Lee book is still "Sarah Phillips."
  
  I must say, Zenin is one of the most unlikable characters I've ever read.
• 
  Mary

  For me, this book is more of a 2.5.
  
  Andrea Lee is a good writer, and the way the story weaves back and forth through time was interesting. I especially liked the character asides at the end of each chapter from someone in the story who was not a main character; e.g., a waiter or the vegetable seller, etc. I loved the fact that this book was set in Italy; the descriptions of famous places in Rome were compelling, and the author had authentic insight into Italian culture. Despite the good points, the main characters were flat and just plain unlikeable. Mira seemingly has everything: a husband that loves her, an adorable daughter, and a budding career as a writer, and she throws it all away to carry on an affair with a pretentious Italian billionaire (Zenin), whom she actually detests. We know from the beginning of the novel that she is going to cheat on her husband, and it destroys their marriage and their innocence, but I thought there would be more insight into WHY she behaved as she did. Her relationship with Zenin is practically a fourth character in the book, and yet, the author hardly gives it any emotional development. I was left wondering WHY Mira would turn her back on all the good things in her life so she could engage in a power struggle with a cold, calculating, joyless man.
• 
  Jaclyn Day

  This book tells the story of how a woman’s love affair and adultery changed her marriage and her lover. It jumps in time, from the “present” to the “past,” telling the story from every possible perspective. There’s a lot of unanswered questions in this book, questions that the characters try to get answered and questions that the reader walks away with.
  
  Like, for instance, why I didn’t like this book more. It seemed promising and had even received a few good reviews from reputable sources, so I thought I would enjoy it (and I thought I would especially enjoy it when I saw how short it was). I like succinct books about complicated romances.
  
  But, the thing is…the book really isn’t about love. It’s definitely not about romance. It’s not even really about betrayal and marriage, although it seems like that’s the obvious subject at first. It’s really about the power of attraction, especially when said attraction seems so ridiculous, so far-fetched except that there is power and money also at play. It’s interesting to see our adulteress scramble to find reasons why she cannot stay away from her very unlikable lover.
  
  In the end, the reason to read this book is for the cultural footnotes that Lee inserts about the locations the book takes place: the people, the food, the scenery. Then again, that was my reason to read Eat, Pray, Love and I hated that book too.
• 
  Bryan Murphy

  Luckily for me, traces of cultural socialism still persist in England: a simple request to Kent Libraries had this book located and transported across the county for a reader's enjoyment. My wonderful local library in Italy had closed its doors to the public last year. I'd sought the book after reading a splendid short story by Andrea Lee in an anthology of USAmerican fiction and discovering that I'd lived in the same city as her, Turin, for 20 years, without ever running into her. I guess we moved in different circles, for although I knew my fair share of rich Communists, I managed mostly to avoid down-at-heel aristocrats and Berlusclones. Lee succeeds brilliantly in keeping such people interesting. One way is by a regular switching of point-of-view among the three main characters (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) in each chapter, which ends with an enlightening comment from a minor character: together these latter make up a Chorus of soloists. She also switches regularly in time, between the mid-Noughties and the mid-Eighties. By the end, I thought this formal structure had outlived its usefulness, like a protracted villanelle. Lee is a gifted story-teller with a marvellous turn of phrase. The book is peppered with telling observations on Italy, the world and everything. If it weren't a library book, it would have kept my highlighter hyperactive.
• 
  Caroline

  I gave this one up reluctantly. . .I love Andrea Lee's writing style and the characterizations she creates. For the time being, though, that couldn't overcome the structural weirdness of this novel. The first chapter completely sucked me in, promising to tell a story about the main character and how her marriage dissolved. But each new chapter jumps around in time, and point of view keeps switching. I don't mind this in principle, but the changes are so drastic and frequent that whenever I started getting into the story, it pulled me up short.
  
  I ended up taking this back to the library. I'm going to look for a short story collection by the same author (I heard one of her stories on the "Selected Shorts" podcast and I meant to pick up a story collection instead of this novel.) If I still want more after the stories, I may come back to this. It's not at all a bad book, just maybe not a good fit for my attention span at the moment, given the lack of forward momentum.
• 
  EG

  I read this book in just a few days because I was afraid that stopping it would lead to abandoning it (and I prefer to finish books unless they are utterly dire). I love Andrea Lee's short stories, but my by basic problem with this novel is that it just isn't as interesting as it thinks it is. Packed with pseudo-profound observations and pretentious descriptions of the protagonist's Italian surroundings, it was a truly tedious read at times. However, I'd give it 2.5 stars on the grounds that it contains some smart observations about the nature of infidelity and it doesn't shy away from the ugliest sides of its characters. The short segments at the end of chapters were also a nice touch, briefly communicating the perspective of a different minor character each time (e.g. a waiter, a family friend or one of the couple's children).
• 
  Kim Miller

  Hmmm, call me jaded maybe but I kept waiting for this novel to have a climactic ending but it never really seemed to build or go anywhere. I found the three narrator style frustrating because just as I'd start to get interested in a character their voice and perspective was snatched away. I was also super hopeful of being transported to Rome through the writing but found the location to be more of a where's where than a lived experience. The author spent a whole lot of time telling me how Italian her characters where, but I just wasn't swept away. Expectations to high maybe? Huh! Story of my life ...:) Interesting plot line and not unlikeable characters overall but I can't say I loved this novel.
• 
  Betsy

  Not nearly as good as her book of short stories (Interesting Women) this novel is about a high flying American ex-pat couple (handsome blue-eyed WASP guy and stunning light-skinned Black gal who meet at Harvard, of course) who move to Italy where their marriage collapses after gal has an affair with obnoxious rich old Italian magnate (think Ari Onassis or Dominque Strauss Kahn). All the name-dropping - the fancy American prep schools, the ivy league colleges, the elite international hotels and restaurants - got irritating after awhile although it did make me wonder how autobiographical the book is since Lee, based on her book jacket photo and bio sounds very much like the female character in this novel. Major problem: I didn't really care about any of these characters.
• 
  RH Walters

  One heady paragraph describing Mira leaving her mother at the airport to fly to Italy hit me like a glass of wine. This is a sad exquisitely written story of 2 young Americans called Neonati ("the newborns") by their Italian friends and the undoing of their innocence as they decide who they are. Lee suggests that Italians know themselves in a way Americans do not and Mira tumbles into a life-changing affair out of an eager bookishness. Most sorrowful and interesting is how little pleasure the affair gives anyone and as Mira remembers a teacher saying, how hard experiences create meaningful shapes.
• 
  Mark

  I seriously didn't want this one to end. It's the story of Nick, Mira and Zenin. Nick and Mira are the perfect American couple who move to Rome and have a child. On the flight to Rome Mira meets Zenin, a rich Italian, whom she has an affair with that spans several years and several countries. It's also a story about what binds people together (or more precisely what doesn't bind them together) about living abroad, about Italy, about how stories interwine as we live our lives. Lee's writing is finely descriptive and exact. She wrote this from the perspective of all three characters (and a few more extras thrown in) which gives you a kind of 360 degree view of the story.
• 
  Stacy

  I'm still not sure how I feel about this book. I liked the overall style of it - going back & forth in time, with points of view not just from the main characters but also random characters. We know going into it that Mira is going to cheat on her husband and we know it ruins their marriage, but I couldn't help thinking "Don't do it!" as I was reading!
  
  There is a line in the very first chapter of the book that still resonates with me -- "we always belong forever to people who have hurt us badly, or been badly hurt by us."
• 
  Mandy

  This one did not hold my interest, I didn't care for any of the characters, the writing felt disjointed and it took far too long to read when it shouldn't have for the amount of pages it was - all this has me concluding it just was not for me this one. Shame really, I like to read about Italy and the goings on there but this book probably could have been based in a number of places, there wasn't really an Italy feel to it. Do I wish I had my reading time back - unfortunately I do.
• 
  Lisa Forsen

  I was a little leery starting this read as I had not read very many glowing reviews. Although I enjoyed the style of writing, I did not find any of the characters likeable. Maybe I wasn't supposed to? I also was disappointed in the lack of description of the setting - I expected a little more. Part of the appeal of the book was the setting for me, having visited Italy. I felt it could have taken place anywhere. Disappointing, even when I did not have great expectations.