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A short novel dramatizing the inward conflict of a mother, Margaret Johnson, attractive and well-to-do, traveling abroad with her lovely daughter Clara, who unfortunately has been the victim of a childhood accident, and is mentally retarded. However, in Florence where the major part of the story unfolds, the daughter meets and attracts a young Italian, Fabrizio, of a middle-class family. The courtship and Margaret’s struggle of conscience make up the story which goes on in the context of her genuine love for her daughter and desire for her happiness. The language barrier provides the ideal deterrent to the Italians discovering the American facts. ‘Facts’ are represented by the absent father who becomes the force Margaret must either dutifully obey or diplomatically prevail against. As I lived in Italy five years at the time of writing this, it was easy to include a vivid texture of daily Italian living. The settings of Florence and Rome were easily recognized by any number of readers and a pleasure to write about. The book sold to the New Yorker as a story, but with a few passages deleted for the magazine reinserted, it became a short novel brought out by McGraw-Hill. It was immediately in demand for a major motion picture and was put under contract for and produced by M-G-M, starring Olivia de Havilland, Yvette Mimieux, George Hamilton, Rossano Brazzi, and Barry Sullivan. It has been in a number of paperback reprints, and is currently available as “The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales” (University Press of Mississippi). It is also included in “The Southern Woman: New and Selected Fiction” (Modern Library, 2001). An audio CD of the entire work is available through Blackstone Audiobooks, Oakland, CA. It was published in England and translated into many foreign languages, the most recent being “Lumiere sur la Piazza” (Quai Voltaire, Paris, 2004). It has been a Reader’s Digest condensed book selection. It was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1961. For a discussion of the current musical |
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