CHAPTER ONE

Today is the day my teacher, Miss Stoddard, comes to see my parents. She sent them a letter telling them she wanted to come to our house to discuss "the further education of Nella Castelluca." The letter is official, it was written on a typewriter, signed by my teacher with a fountain pen, dated October 1, 1924, and at the top there's a gold stamp that says pennsylvania education authority. We never get fancy mail on the farm, only handwritten letters from our relatives in Italy. Mama is saving the envelope from Miss Stoddard for me in a box where she keeps important papers. Sometimes I ask her to show it to me, and every time I read it, I am thrilled all over again.

I hope my parents decide to let me go to school in Roseto. Delabole School only goes to the seventh grade, and I've repeated it twice just so I can keep learning. Miss Stoddard is going to tell my parents that I should be given the opportunity to go to high school in town because I have "great potential."

I am the third daughter of five girls, and I have never been singled out for anything. Finally, it feels like it's my turn. It's as though I'm in the middle of a wonderful contest: the music has stopped, the blindfolded girl has pointed to me, and I've won the cakewalk. I've hardly slept a wink since the letter arrived. I can't. My whole world will change if my parents let me go to school. My older sisters, Assunta and Elena, stopped going to school after the seventh grade. Neither wanted to continue and there is so much work on the farm, it wasn't even discussed.

I was helping Mama clean the house to prepare for our company, but she made me go outside because I was making her nervous. She's nervous? I don't know if I will make it until two o'clock.

As I lean against the trunk of the old elm at the end of our lane and look up, the late-afternoon sunlight comes through the leaves in little bursts like a star shower, so bright I have to squint so my eyes won't hurt. Over the hill, our farmhouse, freshly painted pale gray, seems to dance above the ground like a cloud.

Even the water in the creek that runs past my feet seems full of possibility; the old stones that glisten under the water look like silver dollars. How I wish they were! I would scoop them up, fill my pockets, and bring them to Mama, so she could buy whatever she wanted. When I think of her, and I do lots during the day, I remember all the things she doesn't have and then I try to think up ways to give her what she needs. She deserves pretty dishes and soft rugs and glittering rings. She makes do with enamel plates, painted floorboards, and the locket Papa gave her when they were engaged. Papa smiles when I tell him about my dreams for Mama, and sometimes I think he wishes he could give her nice things too, but we're just farmers.

If only I could get an education, then I could get a good job and give Mama the world. Papa says I get my brains from her. She is a quick study; in fact, she taught herself to read and write English. Mama spends most nights after dinner teaching Papa to read English, and when he can't say the words properly, Mama laughs, and then Papa curses in Italian and she laughs harder.

I feel guilty being so happy because usually this is a sad time of year, as the green hills of Delabole turn toffee-colored, which means that soon winter will come and we will have the hog killing. Papa says that if we want to eat, we must help. All the chores around the killing used to bother me; now I don't cry much. I just stay busy. I help stretch the cloth tarps where the innards lay in the smokehouse before they're made into sausage, and line the wooden barrels where the scraps go....

 

This moving and persuasive family tale of an Italian-American clan in Roseto, Pennsylvania, follows Nella Castelluca from girlhood in the 1920s to her death in the 1980s. Nella is a wonderful character, brave, smart, and apparently indomitable. Her first love disappears, then reappears the week of her wedding day, changed in a way that rocks her. Her plans to go to college and become a teacher are derailed by an accident that nearly kills her father and forces her into factory work to support her family, and yet she thrives. Cassandra Campbell's young, warm, contemporary voice is fine for young Nella. It fails to age as Nella does, but remains very likable, as does Nella herself. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

 

"Moving and poignant ...Trigiani has again defied categorization. She is more than a one-hit wonder, more than a Southern writer, more than a women's novelist. She is an amazing young talent."

 

"A sweet story of growing up, marrying, and dying within the framework of family, love, and community...[The Queen of the Big Time] will make you smile and reminisce about gentler, more civil times in small-town and rural America."

 

"Trigiani takes from her own heritage to craft a generous plot-driven novel that's a breezy page-turner ... 'Queen' offers a personal saga of American history and a romance woven together with warmth and good humor."

 

"Full-bodied and elegantly written ... Trigiani builds [The Queen of the Big Time] around an old-fashioned love story ...Pure pleasure."

 

"Deaths lead to births, dreams deferred yield wondrous new visions [in The Queen of the Big Time] ... intensely detailed characters."

 

"Heartfelt ... Readers who have fallen for Trigiani's hallmark personages ... in previous books will delight in meeting the new ones É [Paints] a thorough picture of Italian-American family life and the deep pain of lost love."

 

"Trigiani's writing is as dazzling as Lucia's dresses."

 

"Fast-moving, funny, visual, and moving. . . A vibrant, loving, wistful portrait of a lost time and place. Every page is engrossing and begs us to read the next."

 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch...

"Seamlessly superb storytelling . . . Trigiana never loses hold of the hearts of her characters--or of the wisdom that tragedy and redemption are also part of life."

 

"This heartwarming tale is full of lessons about taking risks in life and love."

 

"Compelling...a breezy read."

 

The Queen of the Big Time by Adriana Trigiani
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