Antonio's Wife: A Novel - Softcover

DeJohn, Jacqueline

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060745975 ISBN 13: 9780060745974

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2005

Synopsis

From the glamorous world of opera to the underbelly of New York's seediest tenements, a page–turning rollercoaster ride of kidnappings, betrayals, friendships, spies, bribes, hidden identities, and twisted intrigues . . .

By 1908, Francesca Frascatti has the opera world at her feet. A volatile Neapolitan diva, Francesca secretly aches with regret for having given up her daughter, Maria Grazia, on the road to stardom. Hearing that Maria has started a new life in America, Francesca tries to find her. By night, she sings Tosca; by day, she and Dante Romano, a detective posing as her lover, assume any guise necessary to search New York. Francesca must brave a sordid maze of spies, corrupt police officers and greedy hooligans to reach Maria Grazia before her cunning grandfather can whisk her off to his Italian estate, and away from her forever.

At the opera house, Mina DiGianni, a gentle Italian lace maker from the Lower East Side, becomes Francesca's costume dresser and confidante. Mina is also haunted by her past. Caught between the joyful hope of new life growing inside her and the painful reality of her husband's abuse, Mina discovers new strengths and possibilities working for Francesca . and is bewildered to find herself falling in love with the diva's enigmatic lover, Dante. Mina and Francesca's worlds become ever more intertwined, and then collide in a shocking turn of events. Both women will face the greatest challenges of their lives: to finally lay their pasts to rest, and to embrace the present.

About this title

About the Author

Jacqueline DeJohn was inspired to write Antonio's Wife by her father's stories about her grandmother Filomina, who came to America as a mail-order bride. This is her first novel. She lives in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly

The glamorous world of opera in the early 20th century provides the backdrop for this melodramatic debut. Francesca Frascatti arrives in New York in 1908 to sing Tosca at the Manhattan Opera House (costumed so that her breasts "thrust forward like twin creme caramels"). The divaâ€"famous for both her tantrums and artistryâ€"is accompanied by the dashing Dante Romano, whom everyone imagines is her lover, but who is, in fact, a detective hired to help Cesca find her long-lost daughter. The lovely, naïve Mina DiGianni, a seamstress living on the Lower East Side with her abusive husband, Antonio, is promoted from the opera's costume shop to be Cesca's personal dresser. DeJohn leaks the "secret" early on, hinting heavily that Minaâ€"who came to New York as a mail-order brideâ€"is really Francesca's daughter. But what is Mina hiding from her own past? The web of intrigue spins tighter as affluent and sordid New York worlds converge: Cesca and Dante must determine Mina's true identity before Cesca's Mafia father-in-law can spirit Mina back to Italy; Mina and Dante begin to fall in love; and they all contend with the sinister counterplottings of Antonio and his mistress, Kathleenâ€"an Irish saloon owner so cartoonishly slutty and fiendish that she raises the she-devil to new heights of cliché. Had the patently good and obviously evil guys simply been allowed to duke it out, this narrative might have cleverly spoofed its operatic concept; the underlying theme of "destino" (destiny), however, ruins the fun a bit with its overly serious tone. For fans who like their characters more vaudevillian than operatic, however, this is one roiling historical costume fest and a speedy, digestible read.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060745975
• ISBN 13: 9780060745974
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 448