The Italian Party: A Novel

By Christina Lynch

One of the Wall Street Journal's "Six More Books to Read This Winter" • "Required Reading," The New York Post • Library Journal's "Spring/Summer Bests" of 2018 • A Sonoma Index-Tribune Bestseller • One of CrimeReads' "Debuts to Discover Spring 2018"

"Deeply funny." —The New York Times Book Review podcast

"[A] sweltering thriller set against the backdrop of what is probably your dream getaway destination: Tuscany." —Bustle

"Tremendous fun! Wives with big secrets, husbands with bigger ones, swirling around a 1950s Siena teeming with seduction and spycraft." —Chris Pavone, New York Times bestselling author of The Travelers

"Seeing the "antiquated" culture of postwar/Cold War Italy through the eyes of Americans, obsessed with modern convenience and progress, sort of mirrors my Italy to America transition in a fun way—plus there are spies! Affairs! and lot of food!!" —Giada De Laurentiis

"Imagine Beautiful Ruins plus horses; Toujours Provence with spies, a mystery and sex. The Italian Party is a fizzy, page-turning delight that begs for a Campari and soda!" —Julia Claiborne Johnson, author of Be Frank With Me

“I’ve always wanted to take a trip to Italy in the 1950’s and The Italian Party is my ticket. Like the best Italian paintings, this smart and funny book deftly combines the light and the dark. Christina Lynch’s prose pairs well with any hearty Tuscan red.” —Conan O'Brien

Newly married, Scottie and Michael are seduced by Tuscany's famous beauty. But the secrets they are keeping from each other force them beneath the splendid surface to a more complex view of ltaly, America and each other.

When Scottie’s Italian teacher—a teenager with secrets of his own—disappears, her search for him leads her to discover other, darker truths about herself, her husband and her country. Michael’s dedication to saving the world from communism crumbles as he begins to see that he is a pawn in a much different game. Driven apart by lies, Michael and Scottie must find their way through a maze of history, memory, hate and love to a new kind of complicated truth.

Half glamorous fun, half an examination of America's role in the world, and filled with sun-dappled pasta lunches, prosecco, charming spies and horse racing, The Italian Party is a smart pleasure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Mar 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781250147844

Christina Lynch

Christina Lynch’s picaresque journey includes chapters in Chicago and at Harvard, where she was an editor on the Harvard Lampoon. She was the Milan correspondent for W magazine and Women’s Wear Daily, and disappeared for four years in Tuscany. In L.A. she was on the writing staff of Unhappily Ever After; Encore, Encore; The Dead Zone and Wildfire. She now lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. She is the co-author of two novels under the pen name Magnus Flyte. She teaches at College of the Sequoias. In her own name, Lynch is the author of The Italian Party and Sally Brady's Italian Adventure.

Book preview

PART ONE

TERZO DI CAMOLLIA

Whoever steps into a Ristorante or Trattoria is expected to have at least a full hour’s time and a three-course appetite.

—Eating in Italy: The Sacred Canons of Gastronomy Prevail Despite Innovations, The New York Times, March 4, 1956

ONE

LA LUPA, THE WOLF

FROM ROME THE COAT OF ARMS, FROM SIENA THE HONOR

TUSCANY, APRIL 25, 1956

1.

Newlyweds Mr. and Mrs. Michael Messina drove down the Via Cassia from Florence, he at the wheel, she with the map. The car was brand-new, a two-tone Ford Fairlane in canary yellow and white, headlights gazing into the future, the only car of its kind in all of Italy. It was twice the size of the tiny, drab little Italian matchboxes they were passing, like an eagle amidst starlings.

A young girl bicycling home from school along the side of the road, a woman selling wild asparagus at the pullout, a man tying down grapevines who was stretching his back as they sailed past—they could do nothing but stare, mouths agape, then shake their heads. Americani. It was like they came from another planet.

It had been eleven years since the end of war in Europe. Most Italians just wanted to forget and move on. Rebuilding was well under way, yet the scars of war were still evident everywhere, in every sense, if you knew where to look. Milan, for example, had been nearly leveled, but with great practicality the Milanese had bulldozed all of the debris into a neat, enormous pile on the outskirts of the city, covered it with dirt, nicknamed it the Little Mountain, and built a new city center. Naples distracted itself with Sophia Loren. In central Italy, the scene of much heavy fighting as the Germans reluctantly retreated up the peninsula, many chose to leave rather than rebuild, so that ghostly ruins were being slowly swallowed by nature, half an ivy-covered arch here, a fig tree growing through a cracked tile roof there, stone walls crumbling under the claws of rampant, unruly caper bushes.

Don’t you wish, the wife said, tracing her finger along the edge of the car window, that when you met someone, you could see the story of his or her life? Fast, like a quick little movie, you know?

That sounds awful, said her husband, teasing. I don’t want people to see me picking my nose in fourth grade.

No, she insisted, "it would be just the most important events, the ones that have shaped who they are. So you could really know them."

Still not signing up, he said. They passed a dilapidated blue bus, every face inside turned to watch them, wide-eyed.

Really? Don’t you think it would help us all get along better? Understand each other better?

Like if I saw Stalin’s childhood puppy getting run over I would have liked him better? Don’t think so.

She blushed. I guess you’re right.

As the car zoomed down the road, Scottie took it all in, her eyes hungry for a new landscape, a fresh start. She reminded herself that it was better that Michael couldn’t see the story of her life. He would never have married her. But she would like to see his—there was so much about him she didn’t know. In fact, she really didn’t know much about him at all. Where to even begin?

Did you have your teeth straightened? she asked.

2.

Michael and Scottie stood out from the moment they strolled down the gangplank of the sleek ocean liner that carried them and their possessions to Italy. They seemed to have stepped right out of an advertisement for Betty Crocker, Wonder Bread or capitalism itself. He was twenty-four, handsome, always in a nicely cut suit, camera around his neck. She, barely twenty, was a knockout. Blond, pretty, quick to laugh, always in an elegant hat and pearl choker. She had what the Italians call raffinatezza, a word that covers everything that is the opposite of vulgar—a quality Italians deeply aspired to, while at the same time remaining powerless to resist anything gilded, mirrored, shiny or bejeweled. This spring the papers were full of the marriage of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier, and it was as if Siena’s own version of the royal couple had arrived. Even though there were other Americans coming and going in Siena, those two would become the Americans. Gli americani. Both of them so young, healthy, wealthy and in love. They seemed so free. That was how they seemed.

They were arriving in Siena as part of a wave of missionaries bringing the American way of life to what they were certain would be a grateful populace.

Michael felt like he’d won the lottery. This beautiful creature had agreed to marry him and come on a foreign adventure. A Vassar girl, from a good family out in California! Him just a boy from the Bronx! And the best part was, she wasn’t that smart. Because that’s what Michael wanted. What he needed. Someone who wasn’t too curious. Someone who would mistake his version of things for the truth.

The Italians would take them at face value, see only what they were meant to see. As a culture the Italians valued furbizia—slyness—more than honesty, but they would not expect to find it in Americans, who were generally seen as genial idiots ripe for the plucking. It was only natural for Michael and Scottie to make assumptions about each other, too. They had known each other just a short time, and no courtship is entirely honest. It was convenient for Michael that Scottie had been taught that asking questions—as long as they were not too personal, or impertinent—rather than offering opinions made a man feel like he was being listened to, and supported. She had been taught that a woman likes to feel beautiful, and a man likes to feel superior.

That was what she had been taught.

That was what he believed she had learned.

3.

The Fairlane leapt over potholes that threatened to eat the smaller Italian cars.

You know, this road’s been here since Julius Caesar’s time, said Michael.

Tell me about Caesar, said Scottie. Would he get along with Eisenhower, you think?

He stretched his arm along the seatback and tickled her neck, as if she were a small dog. Well, they could sure swap ideas about building highways, said Michael, who enjoyed retreating into history when the present felt too threatening, which was much of the time. Behind the movie-star-handsome dark brows, strong, masculine nose and square chin, he was a nervous fellow, still the schoolboy who had compensated for his social insecurity by doing well in school. The classroom, in fact, was the only place he had ever felt at home. Caesar had his legions lay these stones by hand to a depth of four feet, which is deeper than Ike’s crews are building the new interstates. Michael had told her that within a few years, Americans would be able to drive from the Atlantic to the Pacific without waiting at a single stoplight. Michael had told her that the Italians were using some of the billion dollars that America had given them to rebuild after the war for high-speed roads here, too. Michael had told her a lot of things. She hoped there wasn’t going to be a quiz. The classroom was the last place Scottie ever felt comfortable. Letters and words on a page were a jumbled code she struggled to decipher. No one had ever told her that she had dyslexia. Her teachers assumed she was stupid, and so did she, unable to see that her ability to adapt to almost any situation with good humor was a greater asset than any PhD.

A new highway’s going to come right through here. It’ll put this place on the map. No more donkey carts, he said as he swerved around one.

I love the donkeys. She waved to the lop-eared donkey and the woman leading it, who glared at her and made a gesture. Michael didn’t see it, so Scottie said, What does this mean? and Michael looked at her, a little shocked, and laughed nervously.

Where did you see that? he asked.

Is it rude?

Very. I wouldn’t do that again.

She laughed, and he laughed with her. Neither of them would ever sink so low as to make rude gestures!

The car rat-a-tatted over the old basalt stones underneath its mighty wheels. The green fields they passed were dotted with red poppies. Scottie spotted distant villas tucked into greenery, her eye drawn to the occasional gray or pair of bays grazing in an olive grove.

Nice, she said. Not thoroughbreds, but well put together, though. She looked over at Michael. We should go riding sometime. She pictured them galloping along side by side over these lovely green hills. That was what she would do if her best friend, Leona, were here with her. She and Leona always had fun together. Couldn’t marriage be like that?

4.

As they came around a curve, Siena suddenly appeared above them, a walled fortress city perched on a leafy green hilltop, terraces of tan brick and stone buildings with dark red terra-cotta roofs underneath an immense cupola, and the black and white Cheshire cat stripes of the Duomo’s prickly bell tower jutting up into a clear blue sky.

I think you’re going to like it here, Michael said. Siena’s a very interesting place. It was on an ancient religious route, so it became wealthy, cultured and powerful, thanks to all those foreigners and their money passing through. The world’s first bank was born here—Monte dei Paschi di Siena, in 1472. Before Columbus even set sail!

You know everything, she teased.

You’ll like this, he said. The stripes symbolize the black and white horses of the legendary founders of the city, Senius and his brother Aschius.

Michael did not mind that Scottie was obsessed with horses. He had no intention of ever trusting his own life to a thousand-pound animal with a brain the size of a walnut. But it was a charming, aristocratic quality in her. An expensive habit for sure, but she came with enough money to support it.

It looks so old, like something from a fairy tale.

Yes, he thought, childlike. She’s childlike. He saw that as a good thing. It made him even fonder of her. She needed to be taken care of. I don’t want to pry, he said. But it may be difficult to manage your money from overseas. Did you make arrangements with your bank? It can be complicated, and I’m happy to help.

Scottie blushed and turned wide blue eyes on him. I don’t have any money, she said. She blinked, and there was an awkward moment of silence. Did you think I did?

5.

Now he knows, she thought. He stared back at her for a moment, his sleek sealskin eyebrows raised, then looked out the windshield and laughed to himself in a way she found hard to interpret.

The road narrowed as it zigzagged steeply up to the city.

The beauty of their marriage was that she, too, at the moment of saying I do felt like she had won the lottery. A Yale man. Handsome. And not some frat-boy bruiser either—Michael was sensitive, with an artistic soul. He was compassionate, having endured the tragedy of losing his brother in the war. True, he was not wealthy—yet. But he was ambitious and hardworking, so success was sure to follow. He had a good job with Ford, that most solid of companies. This was the age when every American family was for the first time buying a car or two, and as Michael had told her, Eisenhower was building interstates so that Americans could go see this land their loved ones had laid down their lives defending. Scottie felt that with Michael, she was literally going places. And fortunately, those places were across the Atlantic, where no one would ask too many questions.

6.

With the plague came depopulation and poverty, poverty led to military weakness, military weakness led to the city being conquered by its loathed rival city-state Florence, which led to humiliation and more poverty. They were climbing through olive groves toward the city now. He steered around another donkey cart, this one piled high with firewood.

That little guy could sure use a pedicure, she said, craning her head to study the poor beast’s hoofs in the rearview mirror.

So she didn’t have money. He had to admit that was a surprise. He ran over their conversations in his head. Had she lied to him? No. He had made assumptions. Father in oranges in California. Vassar. Nice clothes. Friends with the DuPont girl. She must mean she didn’t have money yet. There would be a trust fund for her. Perhaps it came later, when she turned twenty-five or thirty. It was fine—she was still perfect. Nearly perfect.

Michael felt an urgent need to make her understand the importance of everything they were seeing. How it got this way. How bad things were, but how much better they would soon be. He wanted her to share his love of history.

Except for the bank, which did fine, Siena pretty much limped into the twentieth century as a market town for poor sharecroppers growing subsistence crops in a not particularly fertile zone of heavy clay soil, vicious mosquitoes and baking summer heat.

Baking summer heat. Got it. She smiled at a little girl on a red bicycle, who stared back at her wide-eyed, as if she were watching a spaceship float past.

"The rest of Italy refers to Tuscans as maledetti, damned, trapped here as if in hell. He pointed off to the left. Other than the train station over there, which was decimated, even the Allies pretty much ignored Siena as they bombed their way north, chasing the Germans out of Tuscany."

She glanced over at him. On the roof at Vassar the night he proposed he told her that his brother Marco had been killed at Monte Cassino in 1944. Michael, the youngest of their parents’ six children, was only twelve at the time. He didn’t seem to want to say more about it then. She wondered if he would now, but he went on blithely. "I saw a picture in an old issue of Life. The Allies paused their tanks in Piazza del Campo just long enough for a photo op before they moved on to more important targets."

But they like us, right? The Italians?

Oh yes, he said. They love us.

They came to a stop at an intersection with about twenty signs pointing in all different directions. It says to enter the city at Porta Camollia, she said, deciphering the directions.

Sì, signora, he said with a confident smile. He piloted the Ford Fairlane under the arched gate in the massive city walls, and they motored slowly down Via Banchi di Sopra, a crowd of curious and excited children gathering behind them as if they were movie stars. Scottie looked up at the laundry festooning the narrow streets and said, These women are going to be so happy when they have dryers.

And televisions, said Michael. I heard everyone goes to the corner bar when they want to watch something, and there’s only one channel.

I can’t believe they still breastfeed their children, said Scottie.

They shook their heads at how sadly backward things were here. But help was on the way!

7.

Left here, Scottie said, squinting at the property manager’s foreign scrawl. There was something about the city being divided into three parts, terzi, but which part were they in now?

They turned, she believed, onto Via di Città, but it wasn’t. It was some other street, which led to an alley. There were no signs. Suddenly her map seemed all wrong, a threatening labyrinth. They turned around, barely, Michael red-faced, the tendons in his neck standing out. She shrank down in her seat, ashamed and a little frightened, as he roared up the narrow street past a laughing old man in a tattered black hat and took a sharp right onto—

Wait, Scottie yelped, madly searching the map. I’m not sure that’s—

"It must go somewhere," Michael snarled. Her genial husband was gone, replaced by—who was this man?

Scottie looked up from the map to see brick walls narrowing and arching over them. The sky disappeared and they were plunged into semidarkness. She couldn’t understand how he thought the car was going to fit.

I think it’s the other way, Prince, she said gaily.

Well, I can’t back up, he snapped, and she was quiet. They inched forward, the web of laundry lines seeming to get lower and lower over them, and the walls closer and closer, until … crunch.

The eagle was firmly lodged between two brick walls.

Michael hit the accelerator hard, but only produced a horrible noise and a smell of burning rubber. He put it in reverse, but got the same result. He smacked the steering wheel with his palms. His formerly beautiful mouth was set in an angry, ugly line.

We’re strangers, she realized.

They couldn’t get out of the car. They had to sit there, avoiding each other’s eyes, waiting for help.

TWO

IL BRUCO, THE CATERPILLAR

THE REVOLUTION SOUNDS MY NAME

1.

Scottie was no stranger to adventures gone wrong. When she was a child in California her pony had regularly bolted on her and carried her under guillotine-like tree limbs. Like a trick rider, she simply dropped her head and torso down one side of the evil beast and spurred him harder. She had often gotten lost while hiking in the mountains above Los Angeles and come home after dark, always lying to her father about having visited a friend so that he would not be worried about her. And after her father had decided his little tomboy needed polishing and sent her to Miss Porter’s, a fancy boarding school back east, she and Leona had snuck out of their dorm when they were thirteen and gone into New York City to see a shirtless Kirk Douglas in Champion. Spotting a teacher attending the same matinee, they hid under the seats, Scottie pretending to Leona that she was licking the sticky floor, Leona tying an unsuspecting man’s shoelaces together. Scottie had come to believe that an adventure really wasn’t an adventure until something went wrong and you had to rise to the occasion. She reached for the radio, but thought better of it. She thumbed through her Berlitz phrase book, looking for the word for stuck. La macchina è …

Michael stared straight ahead. He looked as if he were in some kind of trance. She felt a new kind of worry bloom inside her like a fungus. Why wasn’t he doing anything? His hands were still on the steering wheel, as if somehow the crushing jaws of this unfriendly place were going to suddenly open up and free them and he could race forward. Even though it was silly, she couldn’t help but feel it was all her fault—in Roman Holiday Audrey Hepburn had stuck her fingers into the Bocca della Verità, an ancient carving. It bit you if you were lying.

It made perfect sense that the jaws of Siena had snapped shut on her.

2.

As he sat in the stuck car, feeling the persona he had presented to his new bosses and to Scottie disintegrate, Michael remembered something his literature professor had said, that in Dante’s Inferno the worst, Ninth Circle of Hell was reserved for those guilty of treachery. Because they had made a mockery of love of family, of country, of friends, of God, they were exiled to a place where they were frozen, their screams rendered immobile and eternal. While Scottie’s natural instinct was to defuse tension and laugh at complications, Michael had a more operatic temperament. He was hearing the clashing cymbals that foreshadow the hero’s agonizing death, already seeing the coffin with his body being unloaded at the pier in New York, his mother weeping over it. But not, a voice crept into his thoughts, weeping as much as she had wept for his war-hero brother. He sighed. It was truly a bad day when even thoughts of death were not a consolation.

Trapped in the car and deeply unsure what to do about it, he found himself staring at an election poster plastered to the wall next to the car. A man’s enormous face stared back at them. VOTARE GIANNI MANGANELLI, it shouted in huge type. A single word was scrawled over it in red paint: MAI.

I would vote for him, said Scottie brightly, as if they were stuck in a traffic jam instead of between two walls. Looks like a friendly type. What’s he running for?

Mayor, said Michael. He pretended to study the party shield in the corner of the poster, as if he didn’t already know it by heart. Looks like he’s the Christian Democratic candidate. That’s the Catholic party. They’re pro-American.

"Oh. Well, that’s good. And what’s mai mean?"

Never.

Oh, she said again. So a Communist wrote that?

Yes, he said, his fear deepening.

That’s not very nice.

No, said Michael. It is not. The Communists are trying to take over Italy.

Oh dear, she said. But not here, right?

Yes. Here, he said, trying to sound casual. This is the heart of Italian communism. The blood red heart, was what he had been told. And you must cut out its aorta.

Michael did not actually work for Ford. That is, he was coming to Siena to open a Ford office there to convince the Tuscans that a fine American tractor was the way to prosperity. But that was not his real job; it was only his cover. His real job was to secretly make sure Gianni Manganelli, Catholic party candidate, won the Siena mayoral election. Michael was, unbeknownst to Scottie, working for the CIA. Being a secret agent was not what he had originally planned to do with his life. He had planned to teach art history at a small boarding school—green fields, quiet libraries, sherry—but somehow, he had shocked even himself, and now he, the person his classmates would have voted least likely to do anything more heroic than rescue a kitten from a tree, was on a top secret mission. He had been told by none other than Clare Boothe Luce, the American ambassador to Italy, that the fate of the world might well depend on him. Half the planet is enslaved by communism, she had intoned. Do you want the entire globe in chains? As if suspecting his doubts about his abilities, she added, This is a new kind of war. Men who have the talent of being invisible are the ones who will win this one.

All he had to do was single-handedly sway one small election, so all of Western civilization didn’t come tumbling down.

Thus far he had bluffed his way along, pretending to be confident, competent. But he was scared out of his mind. His father was right. The world would be better off if his brother Marco had lived instead of him.

Well, gosh, said Scottie, who of course knew none of this. Getting our car stuck doesn’t really set a good example for our side, then, does it?

The children who had been following them started climbing all over the car. They were laughing and pounding and putting their faces up against the glass. Scottie was making monkey faces at them when Michael began shouting, Off! Get off!

3.

I hate Italians, he thought. He had always despised the way his parents, who had emigrated from Sicily in 1914, clung to their traditions even as they were at each other’s throats, so proud. Proud of what? Coming from a place that was stuck in the Middle Ages? A country that had sided with the Nazis until it was no longer convenient? That was now flirting with the Kremlin?

His family had managed to embarrass him even at the minimalist city hall wedding he and Scottie had agreed on. He was relieved when his sisters refused to come at all, claiming a wedding not held in a church was not a wedding in the eyes of God. He told Scottie they were ill. Scottie’s Aunt Ida was there, clearly disapproving of the match, which was bad enough. Then there was Scottie’s roommate and best friend, Leona, who had mistaken him for the elevator operator even though they had met several times before. But his parents were the worst. He cringed as they embraced Scottie, and his mother cried and told her in broken English that this was the happiest day of her life. His father handed her a small paper bag.

Candy-coated almonds, he said. Tradition. To remind you that life ahead will be both bitter and sweet. Then his mother had given her a piece of iron to ward off evil spirits.

Scottie seemed charmed by all the superstition, but Michael saw Leona and Aunt Ida exchanging a look. He knew that look. All he wanted was to get away from anyone who would embarrass him or turn Scottie against him. But now he was in an entire country of people just like his own family.

4.

He’s frightened, she realized. And ashamed of it, because of course men weren’t supposed to ever be frightened. Maybe Michael was right to be scared. What did she know? They must be in real danger. They were trapped, and the place was full of Communists. But even Communists wouldn’t actually let them die here, would they? And they wouldn’t hurt them? They could rob them, she supposed, and redistribute their wealth, but they’d have to get inside the car first.

Scottie tried to summon fear, but she couldn’t. Really, small twinges of guilt aside, she was having fun. She was already planning what she would write to Leona about this. And then we got the car stuck! She reached into the backseat, picked up the copy of Footloose in Italy Leona had given her and hid her smile in it. She ran her finger slowly over the words: When they are happy Italians will sing, and when they are sad they are sour. They have a rather low boiling point, and when they get angry it is best to stand clear of flying gesticulations.

As if on cue, Michael shouted, Via! Via!, making shooing motions with his hands. The children laughed and slapped their palms on the car hood.

Finally, a woman with a broom—a real broom, Leona, like in a fairy tale, a collection of long twigs bound together—came and shouted at the children and chased them away.

Eventually Scottie would come to know Signora Beatrice Mulinari, known in the contrada, or neighborhood, as Nonna Bea, whose ancestor had first made panforte, a fruitcake, for the barefoot monks of the Chiostro del Carmine back in 1205, and whose recipe Nonna Bea still used when making panforte for the current generation of monks. She was the only bad cook in all of Italy, operating on the theory that tasteless food brings us closer to God. Her panforte, in fact, was so hard as to be almost inedible, but the monks didn’t complain, perhaps also feeling that suffering through it was a form of penance. Toothless and subsisting herself on a diet of thin broth, she had never in her life been farther than Colle di Val d’Elsa, ten miles from Siena. She was expecting her seventy-five-year-old son home for lunch—he did not dare resist her watery pappa al pomodoro—but how could he get through with this thing blocking the road? She stood in front of the car and shouted and gestured at it, as if it were a recalcitrant goose.

Incastrato! Scottie shouted. Michael looked at her in surprise. It means ‘stuck’ … right? she said, suddenly unsure. It did have an odd sound to it that was awfully close to … She hoped she hadn’t just announced that they were castrated, or wanted to be castrated, or that someone else should be castrated.

The old witch jabbered at them. It was unclear whether she was angry about the stuck car, or sympathetic, or insulted by the suggestion that castration was imminent, but at last a carabiniere arrived to point out that they were blocking the road.

Leona, who had traveled to Italy the previous summer, had described the carabinieri—military police—in glowing terms. Long capes and ridiculous Napoleonic hats. Tall black leather boots and crisp uniforms and black horses. Every last one handsome and dark-eyed.

Reviews for The Italian Party

[cubsfan3410 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was such an emotionally charged story. I felt all the emotions while reading it. I loved this book from the start!
I highly recommend you read this.

[tamidale · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Italian Party was such a fun read and not at all what I was expecting. The story begins when newlyweds Michael and Scottie arrive in a small Italian village of Siena to begin their married life. They appear to be the perfect couple. But they are both keeping devastating secrets.As they settle in to life in Italy, they soon become a part of the local politics. Learning who to trust is a precarious endeavor, especially because they don’t trust each other. Readers are privy to the thoughts of each spouse as the story moves along and they begin to grow into a deeper relationship, eventually revealing their secrets.I loved the 1950’s nostalgia. The descriptions of what Scottie wore--all the way down to the girdle, brought back memories of watching my grandmother struggle to get into hers in the 1970‘s. The descriptions of the Italian culture, complete with the habits of the people, the food and the Palio, added so much to the story. I went online to see the images from Siena and the pictures just brought the story even more to life. Keeping the story interesting was the sexual intrigue of the Italians and the blossoming friendships between the young Americans and the locals. I also found it interesting to compare the politics and social mores of 1950’s Italy and America, to those of today. This was a delight to read! This is author Christina Lynch’s debut novel and I will most certainly be looking forward to her future work.Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read an advance copy.

[blogbrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great descriptions of Tuscan food and life and I learned about post World War II Italy as well. Edoardo Ballerini could read from a cereal box and I would be enraptured, so having him as the narrator was a huge bonus.

[ridgewaygirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Scottie and Michael meet, marry and arrive in Siena, Italy to start their lives together before they really know each other. It's 1956, and Michael has come to open a Ford tractor dealership in the small Tuscan city. Both think they've got the better part of the deal because both are concealing secrets from the other. Along with their own secrets, there are plenty of others, especially since Michael's real job is with the CIA, which considers Siena to be the dark center of communism in Italy. Christina Lynch's debut novel, ended up being a lot of fun. It was a rocky start, though, with a few problems that threatened to derail my enjoyment, the most glaring of which was a pregnant woman worried about how much she was starting to show in the first chapters, but by two months later was only three months along. Despite hiccups like that, both Lynch's ample research and understanding of her setting as well as the madcap pace of the novel were more than adequate to redeem this fun, summertime book.

[muddyboy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is the 1950's and a young couple move to Italy and they seem like a modal couple, It is in the midst of the Cold War and the Communists are very active. Michael (the husband) seems to be a Ford tractor dealer but (spoiler alert) is a U. S. agent sent to thwart the evil Commies. But, that is not his only secret. His wife Scottie has secrets too. The story moves along nicely as the couple make discovery after discovery.about each other. The author is very knowledgeable about the 1950's and the Italian setting. Well worth reading.

[tuf25995 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thank you the publishers and the author for the chance to read this book in advance.What a whimsical, charmingly Italian ride. I felt like I was watching a black and white film from the 1950s and I so enjoyed every moment. I could see Scottie and Michael with the roof of their car down, zipping down the winding dirt roads of Siena. Getting stuck between the tiny alleyways. Little Robertino running this way and that, always looking to make some connection, some money. I loved Scottie's and Michael's relationship. Pure in its own way. Two pure, good people who are just doing what they think is the right thing and mean no harm. I loved their willingness to forgive and to move on and to grow together, even with all the roadblocks in their way. Italy broke them apart and glued them together in so many ways. The secrets and the lies and the mistakes were not enough to break their bond, and I adored that. I would love a sequel...The Brazilian Party. Yes/yes?

[ethel55_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In April of 1956, newly wed Michael and Scottie head off to Siena, Italy to bring American business (in the form of a tractor dealership) to this country still set squarely in a post war climate. There were a lot of secrets and storylines wrapped up in each chapter, separated by mini sections within. Both characters seem like the classic innocents abroad in the beginning, but as the story moves along, the secrets within their marriage almost over take the story of Siena. Horse races, gossip, Italian lessons--Scottie proves to be very helpful to her husband in his new, secretive life. The specter of Communism is an everyday fact of life, and it was interesting to see how their feelings at the start of the Cold War played in to how they treated their Italian neighbors and how they fit in. I really enjoyed getting to know some of the citizens of Siena, and the mystery surrounding Scottie's teenage Italian teacher and the horse race was interesting. It wasn't quite the book I thought it would be, but I definitely wanted to read it to the end.

[pamv-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had no idea what I was getting into with this wonderful book. It has humor (lots of humor), it has espionage, it has lies (lots and lots of lies), it has adventure, and it has so much more...

This is the story of newlyweds who travel to Italy in the 1950's. They know so little about each other and so little about the country that they moved to.

My thanks to netgalley and St Martin's Press for this advanced readers copy.

[brokenteepee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I’ve taken myself off of reading WWII novels because I overdosed but as this book took place AFTER the war and I wouldn’t have to deal with Nazis but rather Communists I figured I’d be OK. And truth be told the Communists hardly appear in the book at all. Michael and Scottie have to moved to Sienna to ostensibly open a Ford tractor agency. They are newly married and both are keeping deep secrets from the other.There is much going on; Michael is a CIA agent and hasn’t told Scottie. Scottie isn’t a rich heiress as Michael expected since he met her as Vassar. Michael is not able or willing to embrace Italy and Scottie wants to immerse herself in the culture. As Michael embarks on his mission to keep the Communist candidate from winning the election for mayor and Scottie tries to find a lost boy they seem to be at cross purposes – each not realizing what the other can do to help the other. Until Michael realizes what an asset his wife can be.I’m very mixed on this book. It had so much going for it; a great story line, intriguing characters and a location that would have anyone dreaming of never wanting to leave – even if only in the pages of a book. But it seemed at times that the characters were cardboard cutouts performing set tasks. There is so very little emotion even when dealing with lies and betrayal on both sides. It leaves the reader at a remove – rather as if you are observing the story than being immersed in it.It is certainly an interesting period in history to revisit, particularly with Russia so much in the news lately. It seems the same fears that drove the first Cold War are coming around in a different incarnation to start a second one. Michael’s wholesale panic about the possible arrival of Communism on the shores of the USA shows how people reacted to the threat at the time.The Italian Party has many ancillary story lines and perhaps that is part of what has me torn on this book. In trying to show the flavor of the citizens of Sienna and their quirks perhaps Ms. Lynch just offered too many stories that perhaps tied together but really didn’t bind.

[ivydtruitt · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3.5 starsSecrets and communists abound. It’s the tail-end of the McCarthy era period of the cold war and communists are lurking everywhere or so many American’s believe. Scottie and Michael are newlyweds with more secrets than Carter has little pills. Scottie believes they’re moving to Siena to sell tractors to the farmers, bringing a bit of good ‘ol American capitalism to this area of Italy. Michael thinks Scottie has a trust fund she’ll be coming into any day. Neither could be further from the truth.Fascists, Communists, spies, double-agents and more populate Siena, Italy. Nothing and no one is what or who you think they are. Ms. Lynch takes readers back to an era that, despite its faults, many look back on with nostalgia as a simpler, better time.Scottie and Michael have some growing up to do. The rose-colored glasses are shed as they make discoveries about themselves, each other, and the world around them.Travel back in time with Scottie, Michael, and all the vivid characters they encounter, in this fetching and more realistic gander at an oft-romanticized era. You aren’t likely to regret it.

[iadam-2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I received a free e-copy of this book and have chosen to write an honest and unbiased review. I have no personal affiliation with the author. This is a well-written historical political spy thriller set in Italy in the 1950s. There is a threat of Communism throughout the country during this time. Nothing is at it seems. There are spies, alliances, cover-ups, murder, disappearances, adultery, a missing horse and a missing boy. There are so many secrets. Who has the most secrets? This was an interesting read.

[jbarr5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Italian Party by Christina LynchStarts out with Scottie and her new husband Michael as they are traveling through Italy towards their new house.They have relocated to Italy and Michael will sell tractors. He works at Ford but we also learn other hidden screts about him.Story also follows Scottie and her past life and her hidden secrets.Love descriptions of the landscape and people and history as they drive along. To arrive and have nothing there I don't know what I'd do myself.When the characters are talking in Italian there are Englsih translations so you are not lost.Robertino is employed by Michael to help him spy on his wife and others. He also takes Scottie around the town aclimating her to the locale.Lots of action, horses, adventure and mysteries. Just when you think the secrets are out there are more hidden. Sexual scenes and some swearing.Lots of different plots in this book, easy to keep track of them and I found it interesting to learn of things from so long ago. Resources quoted at the end.Recieved this review copy via Netgalley and this is my honest opinion.

[fredreeca · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Scottie and Michael are newlyweds and have moved to Italy. Michael is starting a tractor business. And Scottie is just learning to survive in a strange country and with a strange husband. These two both have huge secrets they are keeping from each other. And when Scottie’s tutor goes missing..the story really takes off.Scottie and Michael’s relationship starts out pretty odd. They each have secrets and the way they interact with each other to keep these secrets hidden is interesting. As a matter of fact…it’s down right funny the lengths they go to not to let the cat out of the bag.But, there is something missing in this read. I was not a huge fan of Michael. I thought he was a little bit of a wuss. I wanted him to react differently in many situations. And believe me….when you find out ALL of Michael’s secrets…there are many situations.I could just picture the lovely scenery in Italy. What a unique place to set a “sort of” spy novel. Yes this book has a little of everything…love, spies communist, and even a cute little dog!I received this novel from the publisher to a honest review

[leopolds-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Release Date: March 20, 2018Newlyweds Michael and Scottie Messina move to Siena, Italy in 1956. Michael is operating a Ford tractor dealership as cover for his role within the CIA. His current mission is to influence the local election to ensure that the winner is not from the Communist party. Michael is leading two lives and is keeping his CIA involvement and other secrets from his wife. Scottie’s life is in transition after dropping out of school abruptly and agreeing to a quick marriage. She has secrets of her own and has not revealed to Michael that she entered the marriage while pregnant. Despite the impediments, the two truly like each other and are dedicated to making the marriage work.Scottie spends a great deal of time alone due to Michael's busy travel schedule. She decides to learn Italian so that she can explore while Michael is away. She hires a local boy named Robertino who is well connected despite being fourteen years old. Things improve until Scottie learns that Robertino is missing. Scottie’s search for the boy leads her to uncover hidden truths about the city and her husband’s activities. Previously kept secrets begin to unfold and they work to forge an honest relationship.This is a debut novel by Christina Lynch. The Italian Party is an engaging novel during a unique time in Siena’s history. The story brings together two individuals with differing needs and shows their progression into a loving union.

[fhudnell-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"American tourists come here and they see only the happy, beautiful Italy they want to see, and that the Italians want them to see. The party. They don't see the scars. The ongoing struggles. Why would they? They don't see them at home, either." In 1956 Scottie and Michael are two naïve young Americans who married soon after meeting at a Vassar mixer. They have just moved to Siena so that Michael can establish a Ford tractor dealership and it turns out that they have brought a lot of secrets with them. To reveal any of those secrets or the new ones that develop would spoil this really charming and witty book. Italy is still recovering from the war. It is a country with many complex political parties and alliances and both the Russians and the Americans see an opportunity to exercise influence. "Italy was not carefree and sexy like they made it seem in Roman Holiday. It was dense and mysterious and dangerous and confusing." Scottie and Michael settle into life in Italy as a combination of innocents abroad and ugly Americans. He has a little trouble making inroads with his new neighbors because he speaks Italian with the wrong kind of accent, i.e. Sicilian, and he encounters Italians with a dim view of Americans who make films that are treacle and products that are flimsy and who maintain an imperialist presence in Europe. Scottie, on the other hand, is more gregarious. She quickly picks up Italian from Robertino, a 14 year old boy who shares her love of horses. Robertino also performs odd jobs for Michael so the couple, as well as the rest of the town, are quite worried when Robertino suddenly disappears during preparations for a horse race that is packed with tradition. This book is a delight with characters that I loved, spies, counterspies, mystery, love and great food. The author has a very light touch with history, politics and other serious topics. I would be happy to read another book by her.I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is 1956 and Scottie and Michael are newly married. Scottie is very young, naive, dropped out of Vassar to get married, Michael is older and likes that Scottie is young enough to be moulded. Michael is opening a Ford tractor business in Sienna and it is where he and Scottie will live for the time being. This couple don't know each other well, they both have secrets, and their own reasons for the marriage.A fun read, a sort of spy romp but also much more. Although the war has been over for a while the threat of Communism looms, and many country's have agents in Italy trying to sway elections away from the Communist candidates. There is humor, much on relationships, the food and flavor of Italy, the people, the politics, past times, and horses, the palio. Every time I read the name of this Marquis, though of course in this time period using a title was not a smart move, Carlo Chigi Piccolomina, I just had to smile. What a marvelous name!Everything sort of meshes together, in rather optimistic and mature way. My favorite part of this story though was watching Scottie change and grow. Tackle things she never thought she could, reason out things that seemed impossible, making friends, and embracing so much the couch try and city in which she finds herself. An enjoyable and interesting look at a time period fraught with political fear, and a wonderful look at a beautiful city, its customs and people.ARC from Edelweiss and St. Martin's Press.

[teachlz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My Review of “The Italian Party” by Christina LynchChristina Lynch, Author of “The Italian Party” has written an enjoyable, unique, satire and fictional story. The “Italian Party” in no way really means a celebration. It actually refers to the Italy about 10 years after World War Two, while there are controversial political parties.The author describes her characters as complex, and complicated. Everyone has secrets, lies, omissions, and betrayals. For example, Scottie and Michael are newlyweds, but know absolutely nothing about one another. Really and truly. I can’t give away spoilers, but these two are certainly clueless. I can tell you that Michael works for the CIA, but Scottie has no idea. I can tell you that Scottie is a gorgeous blond American with a Vassar education, and a monumental secret, and never mentioned to Michael that she has no money. Michael thinks she is loaded. Scottie makes no secret that she loves horses, she is like a horse whisperer. Michael reads books on how a husband should treat a wife, and Scottie reads books on what a wife should do to make a husband happy.So where do these honeymooners go? They go to Italy of course. Michael tells Scottie he will be selling tractors to people who still use donkeys and mules. Of course he is with the CIA, and wants to make sure politics is on America’s side. Michael hires a tutor for Scotty to teach her Italian. Everything falls apart when her teacher goes missing , as well as a special horse. Scotty will not rest until she finds out what is happening.I appreciate the way the author uses vivid descriptions of the Italian countryside and mountains. Also mentioned is the variety of local foods, that appeals to all senses.I found this story to be witty and charming, and would recommend this to readers that enjoy both fiction and satire. I received an Advanced Reading Copy from NetGalley for my honest review.

[seeword · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A young mixed-up couple living in Italy in 1956. They have lots of secrets from each other and from everyone else--or so they think. It's a fun diversion and pretty accurate about how things were in the 50s.Free advance review copy through Goodreads giveaway.

[amylee39 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great descriptions of Tuscan food and life and I learned about post World War II Italy as well. Edoardo Ballerini could read from a cereal box and I would be enraptured, so having him as the narrator was a huge bonus.

[bookscookslooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I’ve taken myself off of reading WWII novels because I overdosed but as this book took place AFTER the war and I wouldn’t have to deal with Nazis but rather Communists I figured I’d be OK. And truth be told the Communists hardly appear in the book at all. Michael and Scottie have to moved to Sienna to ostensibly open a Ford tractor agency. They are newly married and both are keeping deep secrets from the other.There is much going on; Michael is a CIA agent and hasn’t told Scottie. Scottie isn’t a rich heiress as Michael expected since he met her as Vassar. Michael is not able or willing to embrace Italy and Scottie wants to immerse herself in the culture. As Michael embarks on his mission to keep the Communist candidate from winning the election for mayor and Scottie tries to find a lost boy they seem to be at cross purposes – each not realizing what the other can do to help the other. Until Michael realizes what an asset his wife can be.I’m very mixed on this book. It had so much going for it; a great story line, intriguing characters and a location that would have anyone dreaming of never wanting to leave – even if only in the pages of a book. But it seemed at times that the characters were cardboard cutouts performing set tasks. There is so very little emotion even when dealing with lies and betrayal on both sides. It leaves the reader at a remove – rather as if you are observing the story than being immersed in it.It is certainly an interesting period in history to revisit, particularly with Russia so much in the news lately. It seems the same fears that drove the first Cold War are coming around in a different incarnation to start a second one. Michael’s wholesale panic about the possible arrival of Communism on the shores of the USA shows how people reacted to the threat at the time.The Italian Party has many ancillary story lines and perhaps that is part of what has me torn on this book. In trying to show the flavor of the citizens of Sienna and their quirks perhaps Ms. Lynch just offered too many stories that perhaps tied together but really didn’t bind.

[slevyr26 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thank you the publishers and the author for the chance to read this book in advance.What a whimsical, charmingly Italian ride. I felt like I was watching a black and white film from the 1950s and I so enjoyed every moment. I could see Scottie and Michael with the roof of their car down, zipping down the winding dirt roads of Siena. Getting stuck between the tiny alleyways. Little Robertino running this way and that, always looking to make some connection, some money. I loved Scottie's and Michael's relationship. Pure in its own way. Two pure, good people who are just doing what they think is the right thing and mean no harm. I loved their willingness to forgive and to move on and to grow together, even with all the roadblocks in their way. Italy broke them apart and glued them together in so many ways. The secrets and the lies and the mistakes were not enough to break their bond, and I adored that. I would love a sequel...The Brazilian Party. Yes/yes?

[clp412 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Italian Party started off great with a funny scene with the car as they arrived in their new town, Siena Italy. I liked the secrets and mystery that Scottie and Michael had in their marriage. The characters in the Italian city are a fun group too. The idea of this book is great showing how Americans viewed other countries and tried to push its ideas onto citizens all over the world. The only part that was difficult for me was following the political plot with the communists and different political parties. I did get confused a few times but it didn't take away from the story. There was a lot of unexpected parts about horses, which I also enjoyed (and no animals were harmed)!! Overall I did like the characters and I most loved life in Italy and the descriptions of the town, countryside, pasta etc. Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's press for the opportunity to read this book.

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher.*This book makes for good escapism - centered around a newlywed American couple with plenty of secrets as they set up their life in Siena, Italy, in 1956. Unknown to his wife, Michael is not only homosexual, but he's also a CIA agent tasked with ensuring the right outcomes in the local elections. His wife Scottie possesses a few secrets of her own - including the identity of the father of the child she's carrying. Overall, this is a fun romp through 1950s Italy, complete with plenty of pasta, fast horses, and handsome Italian men. The history isn't bad either, but read this one for the escape as much as for the history.