Stella Fortuna
Apr. 5th, 2023 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearThe Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna charts the long life of the titular character, from her childhood in a remote village in 1920s and 30s Italy, through her emigration to the US during World War Two, and up into her old age in the 80s and 90s.
The premise of her having survived near-death experiences seven or eight times over the course of this life is an engaging one. And the presentation of it being a 'true' family history, written by her grandmother gives it an interesting frame and effective narrative approach.
While the story is actually based on the author's grandmother, and she evidently did a lot of research about the period she covers, it is a novel rather than a biography, so the line between truth and fiction is definitely blurred. The strong first-person authorial voice and summary sections that read more like history add credibility, but I also found them a bit unsettling, as it gave the book a sense of trying to be something it's not.
The whole thing is very well-written, and it was certainly an engaging and compelling read for the most part. However, it's also unrelentingly grim and gets more and more so as it goes on. The injuries and abuses suffered not only by Stella, but also many of the other women in her family and social circle may be a realistic representation of the lives lived by certain women throughout the 20th century - but it did start getting a bit much by the last third. It crossed a line for me about 50 pages from the end, but I persevered and completed it, even though I was finding the whole thing actively upsetting by that point.
It's a real shame, because it's a great way to tell a story. The settings were clearly well-researched and vivid, the book has a wide range of interesting characters, and the writing is excellent. But the cumulative grimness and almost total lack of any kind of positivity to lighten the tone just got too much for me by the end.
The premise of her having survived near-death experiences seven or eight times over the course of this life is an engaging one. And the presentation of it being a 'true' family history, written by her grandmother gives it an interesting frame and effective narrative approach.
While the story is actually based on the author's grandmother, and she evidently did a lot of research about the period she covers, it is a novel rather than a biography, so the line between truth and fiction is definitely blurred. The strong first-person authorial voice and summary sections that read more like history add credibility, but I also found them a bit unsettling, as it gave the book a sense of trying to be something it's not.
The whole thing is very well-written, and it was certainly an engaging and compelling read for the most part. However, it's also unrelentingly grim and gets more and more so as it goes on. The injuries and abuses suffered not only by Stella, but also many of the other women in her family and social circle may be a realistic representation of the lives lived by certain women throughout the 20th century - but it did start getting a bit much by the last third. It crossed a line for me about 50 pages from the end, but I persevered and completed it, even though I was finding the whole thing actively upsetting by that point.
It's a real shame, because it's a great way to tell a story. The settings were clearly well-researched and vivid, the book has a wide range of interesting characters, and the writing is excellent. But the cumulative grimness and almost total lack of any kind of positivity to lighten the tone just got too much for me by the end.
