Some of these recipes were adapted from the following cookbooks: La Dolce Vita and Sophia Loren’s Recipes and Memories . For more recipes, special reading group features, or to invite Rosanna to visit your book club in person or via phone/Skype, check out www.RosannaChiofalo.com.
Please turn the page for a very special
Q&A with Rosanna Chiofalo.
How do you pronounce your last name?
KEY-OH-FAH-LO.
What inspired you to write a novel?
Since I was a child, I always wanted to write a novel someday. I began to seriously write in college. Like many other aspiring writers, I had writer’s block and attempted several novels but then abandoned them as I got stuck. It’s ironic because a few years ago, I consciously decided to give myself a break from writing or even thinking about my writing. I just needed to stop pressuring myself so much and just walk away from it for a little while to get a better perspective. Deep down, I knew I would return to writing someday. Four years ago, I relocated to Austin, Texas, and I was doing lots of freelance copywriting for several book publishing houses. It was different from when I was an in-house copywriter and copy director since I was writing so many assignments at once as opposed to revising mostly what my freelance copywriters were doing for me. I think being forced to complete so many freelance writing assignments under deadline made me accustomed to writing and not overthinking it, which is what I was doing when I was working on my short stories and novels. It was quite liberating. So when I wrote the outline and first four chapters of Bella Fortuna to be considered for publication, the writing just flowed out of me (thank God!).
How did you get the idea for this story?
I became interested in weddings when I was planning my own six years ago. I thought it would be interesting to have a strong female character who finally finds love and becomes engaged after having to make her clients’ dreams come true for so many years. I wanted to explore how so many brides-to-be fall victim to becoming obsessed with having the perfect wedding dress . . . the perfect wedding. . . even the perfect man! Valentina, who’s seen the crazy behavior of her Bridezilla clients, should know better, but she, too, falls prey to wanting perfection.
Valentina and her mother, Olivia, both believe they’ve had bad luck or been cursed in their lives. Did you draw on your own experiences with good versus bad luck?
Superstition is very common in the Italian culture. As the daughter of Sicilian immigrants, I did often hear my relatives refer to the powerful malocchio. What I often heard was that a curse had been cast on someone when that person suffered a misfortune in their lives. It’s funny. Just being jealous of someone could cause a curse to then be placed on the person you’re envious of. I never put much stock in curses or bad and good luck, but I am a believer of fate and karma. Ever since I read Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy for a paper I had to write in school, I became intrigued with the notion of fate versus the concept of exercising control over your own life. I do feel that ultimately everyone has the power to alter and control their destiny, but I also believe some things happen because they were meant to occur that particular way.
The secondary characters you created in Bella Fortuna are just as memorable as the main characters, especially with their peculiar traits and flaws. What was your intention in including these characters in the novel?
Again, I have to refer to another Victorian master of literature and inspiration to me—Charles Dickens. I always loved how Dickens created a host of characters who had idiosyncrasies. Perhaps I could relate to these characters so much since I grew up in a city as large as New York and encountered so many different types of people with various personalities and quirks. I was also trying to demonstrate how, as a society, we often judge someone based on appearances. And if someone acts in a weird way or exhibits any behavior that deviates from what society considers to be “normal,” we’re even quicker to condemn without making an attempt to understand their motives. Even Valentina is guilty of this, as we see several times in the novel.
Was it difficult for you to write in the more mature voice of Valentina’s mother, Olivia DeLuca?
Though Olivia is quite a bit older than me, I did not have a difficult time writing in her voice. I very much enjoyed writing the chapters that focused on Olivia. Originally, when I came up with the idea for Bella Fortuna, I wasn’t planning on Olivia having as strong of a role in the novel as she did. But when it came time to describe Olivia, I felt the only way I could do justice to her was to have the reader get to know her through her point of view. And the deeper I got into the novel the more I realized Olivia also had a compelling story to tell. I feel that once the reader learns about her history they can understand why she is so hung up on superstition and believing that fate controls our lives.
Any advice for aspiring writers?
Read, read, READ! Reading has helped me tremendously in my own writing. You can’t get better at writing without reading voraciously. And don’t be afraid to surrender yourself completely to your writing. Let your imagination take you where it wants to take you as you’re writing.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
BELLA FORTUNA
Rosanna Chiofalo
About This Guide
The suggested questions are included to enhance
your group’s reading of Rosanna Chiofalo’s
Bella Fortuna!
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Do you feel that Valentina has truly been “cursed in love” as she proclaims in the opening chapter of Bella Fortuna? Do you feel that she’s been unlucky in general in life?
2. How is Valentina different from her mother in her beliefs of the mighty malocchio or evil eye? How are they alike in their beliefs of good versus bad luck?
3. How does Michael fit the knight-in-shining-armor stereotype where Valentina is concerned? Do you think that is a large reason why Valentina falls in love with him?
4. Do you agree with Aldo’s assessment that Valentina has put Michael on such a high pedestal and that no one can live up to such high expectations? Does that make it easier to forgive Michael’s transgressions later? Do you feel that Valentina’s expectations of Michael are unrealistic?
5. Discuss the concept of “forgive and forget” and the pros and cons of either forgiving and forgetting or not forgiving and holding on to a grudge. Do you feel that Valentina is justified in her refusal to forgive Tracy when she sees her at her shop? Do you feel that Valentina was harsh? How might Valentina have handled the situation with Tracy in her shop differently?
6. Valentina is close to her family. But we also see she has a special relationship with her neighbors and the people in her neighborhood. Which is your favorite neighbor and why? Which is your least favorite neighbor and why? Do you feel that the neighbors are an extended family for Valentina?
7. What are Valentina’s views on friendship with women? Do you feel that her views were shaped by Tracy’s betrayal when they were in high school?
8. Valentina and Aldo share a very close friendship and bond. How are they alike and/or different?
9. For most women, weddings are a milestone, and they want their big day to be perfect. Do you feel that Valentina has placed too much importance on having the perfect wedding with Michael? Do you think Valentina is guilty of falling more in love with the notion of getting married than falling in love with Michael?
10. What does Valentina’s wedding dress symbolize for her? What does the dress symbolize for her mother? Do you agree with Michael after he has walked in on her gown fitting that she should drop the shorter front hem of her dress? What do you think are his real motives in wanting a more traditional dress for Valentina?
11. Do you believe that Sonia, the teenage fortune-teller Olivia goes to see, truly has “the power”?
12. Do you think it was wise for Valentina to go to Venice after her engagement to Michael is broken? How does the trip hinder her initially from moving on with her life? How does it help her come t
o terms with what she’s lost?
13. How is Stefano different from Michael? Why do you think Valentina falls for him?
14. After Valentina returns to New York and visits Tracy’s mother, she learns that Tracy seems to have changed her ways. Did you feel compassion for Tracy? Was it easier to understand her actions toward Valentina when they were in high school?
15. What did you think of Valentina’s enormous gesture of giving Tracy’s mother her wedding dress? Do you feel that her action has truly brought her peace?
16. Valentina regrets not having forgiven Tracy. Do you think she should have been more understanding toward Michael when he reveals the secret he’d been keeping from her? Why do you think she is not ready to forgive him? Do you think she ever will? Do you think they can ever be friends?
17. How are Valentina’s wedding plans to Stefano different from her plans for her first wedding? Do you feel that she’s grown?
18. What did you think of her choice in wedding gown for her wedding to Stefano? Did you like it more than the dress she was supposed to wear to her wedding with Michael? Which gown do you feel represented accurately who she was?
19. How do Valentina’s relationships with Michael and Stefano mirror her mother’s relationships with her first love, Salvatore, and her husband, Nicola? How much did fate play a role in whom they fell in love with?
20. Olivia shares with Salvatore what Connie has told her about the Cherokee Indians’ belief that each stage of our lives—childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age—is a different life, almost like a reincarnation. Do you agree with this Cherokee belief? How has Olivia reinvented herself in every stage of her life? How has Valentina?
21. How have Olivia’s views on bad luck changed toward the end of the novel? How have Valentina’s changed?
Please turn the page for an exciting peek at
Rosanna Chiofalo
Carissima
PROLOGUE
Francesca
You have no doubt heard of me. If not by my Christian name, then most certainly by the names that the media has labeled me with: La Sposa Pazza, Carissima, Donna Fortunata, and Dolci Labbra. Of them all, my favorite is Carissima, Dearest One.
You would have to be a fool not to realize why Carissima is my favorite. Who would not want to be known as Dearest One, especially if you are a famous movie star as I am? My fans’ respect and adoration mean everything to me. And whenever one of them calls out, “Carissima,” I feel his or her love.
As for the other names, I do not care for them. Although everyone believes I have it all—fame, fortune, beauty—I am far from la donna fortunata, or lucky lady.
Si, si. I can hear your outrage right now. “What? You do not consider yourself lucky? You are a legend! A gorgeous Italian silver-screen star and one of the richest women in the world. Many would kill to have your life!”
È vero. I do have all this and more. But as for what really matters—family, friends, love—I have nothing.
The last name I especially detest. Dolci Labbra, or Sweet Lips, reminds me of a pornographic film. With their full, pouty shape, my lips have been voted perfect time and time again. Of course I am flattered to have received this praise, but I do not want to be known as Sweet Lips. And I am not the only one who has interpreted this name in such a way. I have had crude men make remarks that refer to the female reproductive organ. It infuriates me that I am associated with this name. And even though Playboy magazine begged me many times to pose in the nude, I never did. I am a real actress, not one of these bimbos who have no talent nowadays and become famous because of their looks, most of which are plastic, or because of a disgusting sex tape they have intentionally created.
As for La Sposa Pazza, who would want to be known as The Crazy Bride, especially when I have never walked down the aisle? La Sposa Pazza was the name of my first film—and the film that made me a star. In fact, all of my nicknames—Dolci Labbra, Donna Fortunata, Carissima—were names of my films.
In La Sposa Pazza, I play a woman in her early twenties who has no trouble finding men who want to marry her. But each time my character is moments away from exchanging her wedding vows, she runs away. In the movie, my character, Rosa Bianca, who has been cursed with a name that means “white rose” in Italian, becomes engaged three times. But she loves romance and dating and knows once she gets married, she will no longer have the glamorous life of a bachelorette.
Again, the irony that my own life would mirror the movie I am most known for has not escaped me or the paparazzi. For like Rosa Bianca, I have become engaged several times—five, to be exact— but have never gotten married. But unlike Rosa Bianca, I never even made it to my wedding, I am relieved to say. At least I had enough good sense to realize that my doubts about each of my fiancés were enough to break off the engagements well before I made it to the altar.
The subsequent movies all have a wedding theme. In Carissima, I play a poor Italian woman who is turned into a movie star after she meets a famous American movie director. But on the morning of her wedding, after she has put on her gown and is ready to leave for the church, my character receives word that her fiancé has been killed in a car accident. After this movie’s release, my fans and the paparazzi would chant, “Carissima, Carissima!” whenever I appeared in public.
Audiences arrived at movie theaters in the hundreds on the opening night of Donna Fortunata to see if my character would finally find luck in love and get married. My character is a school-teacher from Capri who meets a Greek shipping tycoon. The tycoon spoils my character and buys her lavish jewelry and furs and takes her to the most expensive restaurants. He proposes in a tiny boat in Capri’s famed Blue Grotto. Audiences watched nervously during the wedding ceremony scene on the beautiful Greek island of Santorini. Once my character said “I do,” the audience broke out in raucous applause and whistles. The movie ends with a closeup of me kissing my on-screen groom.
After Donna Fortunata, all the media wanted to know was when I would be getting married. At this point, I had already broken off my two previous engagements, and the media wasted no time in christening me with the nickname La Sposa Pazza. The ugly rumors began surfacing as to why my previous two engagements had not worked out, and of course, the blame always lay completely with me.
By the time Dolci Labbra was released, I was engaged to my third fiancé. The movie is a departure from my previous wedding-themed films, and as a result, it did not do as well at the box office. But I am convinced it was that abominable title! Instead of featuring an innocent single woman who is getting married, Dolci Labbra is about a widow who seduces rich men with her expert kisses and lovemaking but then kills them. Apart from the title, I had been happy to play a different character from those of my last movies. Though the film did not make the box office sales of my earlier pictures, it sealed my reputation as “the Bombshell of the Mediterranean.” Ah, I forgot to add this nickname to the others!
There are many shots in this movie of my back. I had not understood during the filming why the director kept asking me to turn around. I had sworn they were giving me dresses smaller than my size eight, and sure enough when I checked, the garment labels were missing. It was not until I had watched the premiere that I finally understood. The director had been shooting my derrière, which looked even curvier in the tight dresses they were giving me. Though critics had panned the movie’s plot, everyone commented on my derrière. And from that moment on, the paparazzi took photos of my derrière, once even while I sunbathed nude on what I thought was a highly secured estate in Lake Como.
It has been fifteen years since I was in a movie. And as I said earlier, I was engaged to be married five times, but never did make it to the altar. At least Rosa Bianca had the thrill of walking down the aisle each of the times she was engaged. I have spent the past ten years as a recluse, which has also added to the belief that I truly am “The Crazy Bride.” (Although after my fifth engagement was broken, the media began labeling me with the title “celibe per se
mpre,” or “single forever.”) Now, after a decade, my hibernation is over. I am coming out of hiding to travel to America. Chissà? Who knows? Maybe people do not care about me anymore. But they say Francesca Donata is a legend—and legends never die.
As for my name preference, I ask to be called “Signorina Donata.” Of course, I do not expect the media to be so formal with me. I simply desire that they call me “Francesca Donata.” But it is too late for that. The nicknames the media has dubbed me with are part of my legend and what has contributed to my fame. Only family and close friends call me “Francesca.”
“Signorina” is the Italian title given to a young woman who is not married. It is the equivalent of “Miss,” while “signora” is the title given to a married woman or a widow and is the equivalent to “Mrs.” Since I have never married, I am technically a “signorina.” But most people think of a young woman as a “signorina” and an old woman as “signora.”
I know it is ridiculous that I insist everyone call me “signorina” rather than “signora” even though I am in my fifties. However absurd my request is, I do not care. After all, why should I be called something I am not? Again, I am an unmarried woman, and as such, that makes me a “signorina.”
1
Pia
Since I was a baby, the sound of the ocean’s waves crashing against the shoreline has lulled me to sleep. We live in the idyllic seaside town of Carlsbad, California. I love the beach and never thought I could see myself moving away. But that was before, when my younger sister Erica was still alive.
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