Review in Italian
Questa è la storia di una figlia che ha due padri. Sì, due padri, non un padre e una madre, come è sempre stato secondo una tradizione universalmente accettata. Questa è la storia della piccola Eva, nata all’interno di una coppia omosessuale. I suoi due padri sono, infatti, Christian, giovane professore di latino, e Giose, all’anagrafe Giuseppe Autunno, ex astro nascente della musica punk rock degli anni ’80. Christian ha lasciato la moglie perché si è innamorato proprio di Giose, un tipo all’apparenza rozzo e senza buone maniere.
Eppure questo amore alternativo resiste a tutti i pregiudizi e gli scandali e a tutti i tentativi di emarginazione messi in atto dalla benpensante società italiana. I due decidono di avere una bambina, Eva, appunto, ma la tragica morte di Christian, avvenuta a causa di uno strano e misterioso incidente, spezza questo legame familiare alternativo, costringendo Giose a separarsi dalla figlia. Con una scrittura avvincente e briosa, Melania Mazzucco ci ha regalato una storia molto seria ed attuale, quella delle coppie omosessuali che decidono di avere figli. Il tema è scottante, perché le coppie gay italiane debbono andare all’estero per trovare la cosiddetta “ madre surrogata”, quella che porterà in grembo il loro bambino dopo un intervento di fecondazione assistita o di trapianto di ovuli.
A parte il tema, talvolta anche molto doloroso e difficile da dipanare, il romanzo di Melania Mazzucco, traccia, sempre con un stile bonario e sensibile, i legami affettivi dei due genitori gay, della loro figlia, ma anche delle loro rispettive famiglie d’origine, dove si notano gli stessi sentimenti sentiti e vissuti dalle cosiddette famiglie tradizionali, ovvero l’antipatia della suocera verso il compagno del figlio, i pregiudizi dei cognati, le riunioni nei giorni di festa, dove si riesce a malapena a contenere i conflitti e le frustrazioni. Al centro di tutto, però, rimane sempre Eva, piccola donna capace anch’essa di giudizi severi nei confronti dei suoi due padri. Alla fine, odio e amore si rivelano identici sia per le coppie etero che per quelle gay, dove, a essere normali, sono semplicemente i sentimenti delle persone e non la loro appartenenza di genere.
Review translated into English
You are what you are by Melania G. Mazzucco
This is the story of a daughter who has two fathers. Yes, two fathers, not a father and a mother, as it has always been in according to an widely accepted tradition. This is the story of the little Eva, born in a homosexual couple. Indeed, the two fathers are: Christian, a young teacher of the Latin language, and Giose, registered as Giuseppe Autunno, a former rising star of the punk rock music in the 1980s. Christian left his wife because he fell in love just with Giose, an apparently rough and impolite guy.
Nevertheless, this alternative relationship resists to all prejudices and scandals and all attempts of marginalization put into action by the moralist Italian society. The two decide to have a daughter, just Eva, but the tragic death of Christian, happened in a strange and mysterious accident, breaks this alternative family, leading Giose to separate from his daughter. With a compelling and merry writing, Melania Mazzucco gave us a very current and delicate story, the one about homosexual couples who decide to have children. The topic is hot, because the Italian gay couples must go to abroad to find the so called “surrogate mother”, the one who’ll keep their baby inside her womb, after a fertility treatment or transplantation of oocytes.
Aside the sometimes painful and entangled topic, Melania Mazzucco’s novel depicts, always with a sensitive and amicable style, the relationships about the two parents, their daughter, but also about their respective birth families, where you can notice the same feelings, perceived and lived by the so called traditional families, namely the dislike of the mother in law against the partner of her son, prejudices of brothers in law, the reunions on holidays, where you can barely keep conflicts and frustrations. However, Eva always remains at the centre of everything, a little woman, also capable to harshly judge her two fathers. At last, love and hate have been showed equal both for hetero and homosexual couples, where, to being normal, they are feelings among people and not the gender they belong to.
The novel is available only in Italian on Amazon.it and in e-book format on Amazon.com.
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Como se llamo esto i am from SPAIN
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