From the Land of the Moon

By Milena Agus and Ann Goldstein

“Powerful . . . The vivid descriptions of the Sardinian landscape are a fitting complement to the heroine’s conflicted heart” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

As this compelling novel opens, a young unnamed woman reflects on the life of her bewitching, eccentric, and fiercely emotional grandmother, whose abiding search for love spans much of the twentieth century. In 1943, as American bombs fall on the city of Cagliari, she is thirty and considered an old maid, still living at home with her parents. But when the bombing ceases, and despite her protests, her father forces her to marry the first man to propose, an older widower she doesn’t love.

After suffering several miscarriages, she is sent for treatment at a spa on the mainland, where she falls in love with an injured Italian army veteran. Back home, she gives birth to a son. She never reveals the affair to her husband—but decades later, she returns to the mainland and travels to her former lover’s hometown of Milan. Dressed in her finest coat and shoes, she wanders the streets in search of the elusive veteran . . .

Set against a backdrop of rugged mountains and Italian villages lost in time, this international bestselling novel is a multigenerational family saga about love, lust, and country.

“Agus’s descriptions of the everyday are as beautiful and haunting as her portrayal of life’s most dramatic episodes. Add an unexpected ending and the result is a graceful, powerful book.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 28, 2010
• ISBN: 9781609450588

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Europa Editions

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.

Translation by Ann Goldstein

Original title: Mal di pietre

Copyright © 2006 by Nottetempo Srl

Translation copyright © 2010 by Europa Editions

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco

www.mekkanografici.com

Cover photo: Ignazietta Lentino

ISBN 9781609450588

Milena Agus

FROM THE LAND

OF THE MOON

Translated from the Italian

by Ann Goldstein

lf I never meet you in this life, let me feel the lack.

—Soldier in The Thin Red Line

1.

Grandmother met the Veteran in the fall of 1950. She had come from Cagliari to the mainland for the first time. She must have been around forty, and had no children, because su mali de is perdas —her kidney stones—always caused her to miscarry in the first months. So, with her sack-like overcoat and high, laced shoes and the suitcase her husband had brought as an evacuee to her village, she was sent to the thermal baths to be cured.

2.

She had married late, in June of 1943, after the American bombing of Cagliari, and in those days to be thirty and not yet settled was already to be something of an old maid. Not that she was ugly, or lacked suitors—on the contrary. But at a certain point the wooers called less frequently and then stopped, each time before they had officially asked my great-grandfather for her hand. Dear signorina , circumstances beyond my control prevent me from calling on you this Wednesday, and also next, which would be very enjoyable for me but, unfortunately, impossible. So grandmother waited for the third Wednesday, but a little girl, a pipiedda , always arrived with the letter that put off the visit again, and then there was nothing.

My great-grandfather and her sisters loved her just the same, though she was almost an old maid, but not my great-grandmother; she always treated her as if she were not her own flesh and blood and said that she knew why.

On Sunday, when the girls went to Mass or to parade along the main street with their young men, grandmother gathered her hair into a bun—it was still thick and black when I was a child and she already old, imagine what it was like then—and went to church to ask God why, why he was so unjust as to deny her the knowledge of love, which is the most beautiful thing, the only thing that makes life worth living, a life in which you get up at four in the morning to do the household chores and then you go to the fields and then to the school for boring embroidery and then to get drinking water from the fountain with the pitcher on your head, and then you’re up one whole night out of ten to make the bread and then you draw the water from the well and then you have to feed the chickens. So if God didn’t want her to know love he might as well kill her, any way he wanted. In confession the priest told her that such thoughts were a serious sin and that there are many other things in the world, but grandmother didn’t care at all about other things.

One day my great-grandmother waited for her in the courtyard with the whip, made of ox sinew, and began to hit her until even her head was bleeding and she had a high fever. She had discovered from rumors in the town that the suitors stopped coming because grandmother wrote them passionate love poems that alluded to obscene things and that her daughter was disgracing not only herself but her whole family. And she went on hitting her, hitting her and yelling Dimonia! dimonia! and cursing the day they had sent her to elementary school, and she had learned to write.

3.

In May of 1943 my grandfather arrived in the town; he was over forty and was an employee of the salt works in Cagliari. He had had a beautiful house on Via Giuseppe Manno, just beside the church of San Giorgio and Santa Caterina, a house with a view over the rooftops to the harbor and the sea. After the bombing of May 13th, nothing was left of this house and the church and many other things, except a hole and a pile of rubble. Grandmother’s family welcomed this respectable gentleman, who had not been called up to fight because of his age, who was a very recent widower, an evacuee with only a borrowed suitcase and a few things pulled from the ruins. They took him in for nothing. By June he had asked for grandmother’s hand, and married her. She wept almost every day in the month before the marriage. She knelt at my great-grandfather’s feet and begged him to say no, to pretend that she was promised to someone away in the war. Otherwise, if they didn’t want her in the house anymore, she would go to Cagliari, she would look for a job. De Casteddu bèninti innòi, filla mia, e tui bòli si andai ingúni! Non c’esti prus núdda in sa cittàdi —They’re coming here from Cagliari, child, and you want to go there! There’s nothing left in the city.

Macca esti, my great-grandmother shouted. Macca schetta! In sa cittadi a fai sa baldracca bòliri andai, chi scetti kussu pori fai, chi non sciri fai nudda cummenti si spettada, chi teniri sa conca prena de bentu, de kandu fiada pitíca!—She’s crazy. Completely crazy! She wants to go to the city to be a whore, that’s all she can do, because she doesn’t do anything the way it should be done, she’s had a head full of air ever since she was a child!

It would have been simple to invent a fiancé at the front—the Alps, Libya, Albania, the Aegean—or at sea with the Royal Navy. It would have been nothing, but my great-grandparents wouldn’t hear of it. So she told him that she didn’t love him and could never be a true wife. Grandfather told her not to worry. He didn’t love her, either. Assuming that they both knew what they were talking about. As for being a true wife, he understood very well. He would continue to go to the brothel at the port, as he had done since he was a boy, and had never got a disease.

But they did not return to Cagliari until 1945. So my grandparents slept like brother and sister in the guest room: with the big, high iron bedstead inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the painting of the Madonna and Child, the clock under the bell jar, the washstand with pitcher and basin, the mirror with a painted flower, and the porcelain chamber pot under the bed. Those things grandmother brought to Via Giuseppe Manno, when the house

Reviews for From the Land of the Moon

[tutti4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's that old wrestling match between Duty and Passion, where the primary protagonist is a wildly romantic grandmother. She's one crazy wrestler.

[ebt1002 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A really sweet little novel. It will warrant re-reading.

[zeborah · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A short easy read, with an interesting conceit: the narrator explores the personal histories of her parents and grandparents, each story leading by topic rather than chronology on to the next. I do want to read more books using this organisational technique: it fascinates me and I want to figure out how to make it work myself. Unfortunately the stories, or story, itself was a bit slight even for this short text and ultimately forgettable, although there were some enjoyable twists along the way.

[tanya8dogearedcopy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

From the Land of the Moon is a novella about a Sardinian woman searching for love in the post-war years amongst the metaphorical and literal ruins of her life. The woman recognizes that her nature is perhaps flawed as true love seems to remain elusive. Her quest assumes at times, sad, pitiable, desperate and creative forms that echo the pathos of Anna Karenina and Madam Bovary. The woman moves about the Italian landscapes of Cagliari and Milan as the country rebuilds from the effects of Allied Bombing and Nazi retreat. The settings of the story provide the physical architecture of the woman's efforts and parallels can be drawn between the reconstruction and her state of mind. The story is told from the point of view of the woman's granddaughter after the woman, referred to as Grandmother, has passed away, providing a doubly unreliable narrative: The woman herself may have been insane and her story suffers from being two generations away from being immediately verified. From the Land of the Moon is poignant without being maudlin and, the letter which serves as the final chapter is a powerful denouement.

Redacted from the original blog review at dog eared copy, From the Land of the Moon; 11/12/2012

[undermyappletree · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In this debut novel by Milena Agus, a young unnamed Italian women pieces together the story of her grandmother’s life, a tale that spans three generations and two families. Translated from Italian, this beautiful book retains it’s lyrical prose. The passion of her grandmother’s bittersweet life and the picturesque descriptions of Italy flowed from the pages.The story begins begins in Sardinia, near the end World War II. Grandmother had just married at age 30 and was considered a bit of an old maid. Her father had forced her to marry the first man who asked, an older widower who she diden’t love. Her family was convinced she scared away all the other suitors by writing them love poems and her own mother thought she was a little bit crazy, perhaps from the land of the moon.After 10 years of marriage and several miscarriages grandmother still had no children. Kidney stones were blamed and for a cure she was sent to the thermal baths on the mainland. It was there that she met the Veteran and immediately fell in love with him. Nine months later she gave birth to a son and the spa treatment was considered a success. She never tells anyone about the Veteran but longs for her lost love all her life.There was always more to grandmother’s life than our narrator knew. After her death the granddaughter finds a book and a letter that had been hidden away. While some questions are now answered, others are raised that made me wonder about what was real and what was imagined. I’m being vague because I don’t want to spoil this for anyone who decides to read the book. I will say that the ending was very haunting and powerful and that families will go to many lengths to protect their secrets.At a little over 100 pages this a novella rather than a novel and when I finished it I wanted more. After I had time to fully digest the story and think about it for a few days, I decided that it was the right length even though some of the questions are not fully answered. And that is my point; I was still thinking about it a few days later and wondering. Highly recommended.

[blacksheepdances · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"She had to begin to live. Because the Veteran was a moment and grandmother's life was many other things."Thought to be insane by her family, the grandmother in this story attempts to recreate a sane and normal life to prove them wrong. Her reputation and behavior dissuades suitors from pursuing her, and without marriage, life in a small Italian village circa WWII leaves her a social outcast. Shortly before the war ends, however, she meets a widower who agrees to marry her; it appears to most that he did so only out of duty to her family for their supporting him financially. Their marriage is marked by tolerable distance and quietness, and while she wishes for children, health issues prevent her from carrying a child full-term. Eventually her husband sends her to a health spa on the sea, in the hopes she'll heal and recover. Perhaps she does so, but too well. For there she meets a man she refers to only as the "Veteran", one who loves her unconditionally and who finds her far more fascinating and vibrant than any 'normal' woman. He thinks she's beautiful, intelligent, and witty. Finally she is loved for who she is...until it's time for her to return home.She returns home with new vigor and soon discovers she's pregnant. Her husband is thrilled and their marriage appears to thrive amid the love for their new son. But who is the Veteran? Will she see him again? Why did she return if she was so loved?Milena Agus frames the story as a narrative between the grandmother and her granddaughter, both unnamed, and flashes back and forth through different parts of their family history. The grandmother is a complex character: a woman who will secretly work like a slave to acquire a piano for her musical son, but who is unable to bear hearing him play it. As the granddaughter hears her story, she has to evaluate how much of it is true, and begins to question what role the Veteran ultimately had. More and more questions appear, but Agus keeps the story tight and keeps revealing details right until the end that ultimately turn the story upside down. Nothing can be taken at face value, and while the grandmother is possibly an unreliable narrator, maybe the granddaughter is too.The story is fast-paced and hard to predict, and surprises are sprinkled throughout. Images of the grandmother searching Milan, looking for the Veteran around every corner, are detailed so intricately one can practically feel the fog that obscures the city and her motives. Italy plays a supporting role as the sun and the sea seem to brighten the background of simple village life even during wartime. If anything, the story is almost too quick. More questions could have been answered or expanded upon. Yet in all, a satisfying glimpse of human perception and frailties.

[labfs39 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

From the Land of the Moon is a beautifully written ode to love. Love in all its manifestations: infatuation, lust, married conviviality, familial caring, patriotism, even an all-consuming passion for music. And it’s a story about the consequences of love’s absence, the desperate desire to fill the void with something: sex, kindness, even a lonely sort of madness. And she stayed at his pace, her beautiful fur-lined shoes in step with those ugly ones of grandfather’s, because she wasn’t angry with him—on the contrary, she was so sorry she didn’t love him. She was so sorry, and it pained her, and she wondered why God, when it comes to love, which is the principal thing, organizes things in such a ridiculous way: where you can do every possible and imaginable kindness, and there’s no way to make it happen, and you might even be mean, as she was now, not even lending him her scarf, and yet he followed her through the snow, half frozen, missing the chance, lover of food that he was, to eat the local potato ravioli and porchetto on the spit. During the trip home she was so sorry that in the darkness of the bus she leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed, as if to say “Ah well.”Grandmother, the only name by which we know the main character, has suffered greatly for love and lack of love. Her parents beat her for failing to catch a husband, her eventual husband loves only the perverse sexual pleasure she can give him, and the one true love of her life is an elusive, ephemeral encounter that lingers unseen in her mind. She worries that there is something about her that causes love to flee, even as she stretches her hands for it. Her granddaughter thinks that perhaps there is a reason:If at night we sleep without nightmares, if papa and mamma’s marriage has always been free of bumps, if I’m getting married to my first boyfriend, if we don’t have panic attacks and don’t try to kill ourselves, or throw ourselves into garbage bins, or slash ourselves, it’s thanks to grandmother, who paid for everyone. In every family there’s someone who pays the tribute, so that the balance between order and disorder is maintained and the world doesn’t come to a halt.Milena Agus is a wonderful writer capable of capturing the longing for love that is fundamental to human relationships and turning it into a delicately woven story reminiscent of a folk tale. I would never have guessed that this was a first novel, and I fervently hope it is not her last.

[wordsandmusic_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A book about the madness of love (for which I'd give it four stars) turns out instead to be a(nother) self-reflexive book about writing.

[lahochstetler · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a story of unrequited love, of a woman forced to marry a man she liked but did not love. In the wake of World War II the protagonist finds herself at a health spa, hoping to cure her infertility. There she meets a war veteran and falls deeply in love. This love is transitory, however, and the woman returns to her native Sardinia and her loveless marriage. While the woman becomes pregnant, she continues to pine for the veteran. The woman's son grows up to become a talented pianist, but it is never entirely clear who his father is. The book is narrated by the woman's granddaughter. Why this is necessary is not evident until the very end of the book. The end brings a significant plot twist, and that caused me to rethink the whole book. This is a short book, and provides an interesting look at life in postwar Sardinia. Agus has certainly captured the sadness of those who resign themselves to circumstance.

[Mark Smith · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a beautiful and poetic novel. It’s a good translation too.

[smiler69 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“She had married late, in June of 1943, after the American bombing of Cagliari, and in those days to be thirty and not yet settled was already to be something of an old maid. Not that she was ugly, or lacked suitors—on the contrary. But at a certain point the wooers called less frequently and then stopped, each time before they had officially asked my great-grandfather for her hand. Dear signorina, circumstances beyond my control prevent me from calling on you this Wednesday, and also next, which would be very enjoyable for me but, unfortunately, impossible. So grandmother waited for the third Wednesday, but a little girl, a pipiedda, always arrived with the letter that put off the visit again, and then there was nothing.” This tiny little book of just 108 pages packs the rich history of the narrator's grandmother, who, growing up in a small Sardinian village and considered to be crazy, was the shame of her parents and sisters. When a man, very recently widowed by the aforementioned bombing offers to marry the inconvenient girl, her father accepts the proposal although she begs him to refuse; she does not love the man and neither does he love her, but marry they do, to everyone's relief. But nearly ten years later, the woman has had one miscarriage after another, even though she has made sure to meet her husband's every sexual demand, no matter how peculiar, to keep him away from the brothels, so she is sent off to be cured of kidney stones at a thermal bath station. There, she meets another patient, a war veteran, and for the very first time, experiences with him the love, passion and consideration she has always yearned for.It's difficult for me to put into words why it is I fell in love with this little book. It's a story about ordinary people trying their best to get on with life and make do with what they have, while going to great lengths to fulfill their yearning and passion, in ways that some would call madness and others would consider to be artistic genius. Gorgeous. A must read.

[readingwithtea · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“But she would discuss it with God, before she went to Hell. She would point out to him that if he creates a person in a certain way then he can’t expect her to act as if she were not her.”In this tiny slender skerrick of a novella (108 pages), the narrator’s eccentric grandmother is lovingly remembered. The title comes from the phrase used in Sardinia to describe someone who seems not to be entirely in their right mind. In an unusual take on the unreliable narrator construct, we have only the granddaughter’s recollection of her grandmother’s stories – and if the grandmother was not entirely truthful (even unintentionally), that skews the narrative.It’s hard to classify this novella – it’s not heavily plot driven (very little actually happens) and the characters (apart from the grandmother) are never described much because we just have a narrative of their actions, not very much actual character description. I suppose it is a still life, in novella form. A bittersweet tale of wartime romance and old Sardinian life.That is not to say that the novella is totally without events or key themes: the temporary romance is a sweet one and gently told; the longer arc of the grandmother’s marriage a more bitter-sweet one. I never quite got to grips with the grandfather’s character – he always seemed quite harsh and unloving – both towards his wife and his child. The grandmother is very interesting – I felt she wasn’t so much mad as just delighted in shocking people and wanted to be taken seriously, not imprisoned in backward customs.Caution: contains very graphic adult content – which seems to spring out of nowhere! The book seems so slender and innocent and is lyrically written, and then suddenly there’s a page of… well, such content as is distinctly unsuitable for those with relatively conservative sensibilities! I was quite embarrassed to be reading this on the Tube a number of times for fear my neighbour was reading too and judged me!