Review: The Shoemaker's Wife

The Shoemaker's Wife by Adriana Trigiani

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



My mom and sister both recommended this book, and for the most part, I really liked it.

It starts in Italy in the early 20th century, with two young people who meet under sad circumstances. Ciro is effectively an orphan, sent to live in a convent, who gets a job digging the grave of a child who has just died. That chid is the youngest sister of Enza, a large family's eldest daughter. Through various turns of plot, both CIro and Enza end up in America many years later, where they cross paths again, a few times, but often with bad timing in other relationships.

The first two-thirds of this book was great - I loved reading about their small towns in the mountains of Italy, their immigrations to the US, and their first few years getting settled and established in America during the 1930's and 1940's. He becomes apprenticed to a shoemaker, while she tries to find work as a seamstress. Ultimately they do end up together, which seems inevitable, but it is still fun to read about how that happens.

Where the book disappointed me was the ending. I found it to be too neat, too many loose ends all tied up. Not that everyone lives happily ever after (they don't) but a few coincidences are too coincidental at the end, and time speeds up too quickly. I'd read something else by Trigiani, because she really has that novelist's ability to transport her reader, but hope for a more well-developed conclusion.



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