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The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales (Banner Books) Kindle Edition

by Robert Phillips (Author, Introduction), Elizabeth Spencer (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 66 ratings
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Elizabeth Spencer is captivated by Italy. For her it has been a second home. A one-time resident who returns there, this native-born Mississippian has found Italy to be an enchanting land whose culture lends itself powerfully to her artistic vision. Some of her most acclaimed work is set there. Her American characters encounter but never quite wholly adjust to the mysteries of the Italian mores. Collected here in one volume are Spencer's six Italian tales. Their plots are so alluring and enigmatic that Boccaccio would have been charmed by their delightful ironies and their sinister contrasts of dark and light. Spencer is grounded in two bases-Italy and the American South. Her characters too, mostly Southerners, rove in search of connection and fulfillment. In The Light in the Piazza (a novella which has become both Spencer's signature piece and a Hollywood film) a stranger from North Carolina, traveling with her beautiful daughter, encounters the intoxicating beauty of sunlit Florence and discovers a deep conflict in the moral dilemma it presents. "I think this work has great charm," Spencer has said, "and it probably is the real thing, a work written under great compulsion, while I was under the spell of Italy. But it took me, all told, about a month to write."In Knights and Dragons (another novella and a companion piece to The Light in the Piazza) an American woman in Rome and Venice struggles for release from her husband's sinister control over her. Spencer sets this tale in the cold and wintry dark and here portrays the other face of Italy. In "The Cousins," "The Pincian Gate," "The White Azalea," and "The Visit," Spencer shows the exceptional artistry that has merited acclaim for her as one of America's first-class writers of the short story.
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  1. Print length
    258 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Phil's House Publishing, Inc.
  5. Publication date
    March 1, 1996
  6. File size
    625 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Seven fascinating tales in which Southerners surrender to the mesmerizing spell of Italy

From the Back Cover

Seven fascinating tales in which Southerners surrender to the mesmerizing spell of Italy

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00548QO0I
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Phil's House Publishing, Inc. (March 1, 1996)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 1, 1996
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 625 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 258 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 66 ratings

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Elizabeth Spencer

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
66 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Jenny Park
5.0 out of 5 stars deceptively simple
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2005
Verified Purchase
After watching the Tony Award show this year I was curious about Elizabeth Spencer, a Southern writer whom I had not heard of before the show. I have just finished reading her novella "Light in the Piazza" (haven't seen the touted play yet)and it was a memorable read. It starts out like a fairy tale---you don't quite know why Mrs. Johnson and her daughter are in Florence, what time period they are in, their background---and you're quickly engaged in a charming romance story. But there's also an undercurrent of tragedy. You discover lies, family strains, an accident in the past. Every character in the story becomes suspect. You start to question every character's motives, possible deceptions (with the exception of Clara, who becomes a symbol of clarity and innocence, as in the Virgin Mary). For the last 30 pages of the story I am nervously living inside Margaret Johnnon's head, worrying about the future of her "simple-minded" daughter Clara.

Elizabeth Spencer is a masterful storyteller, making me ponder what level of control we have in life, how easily we make assumptions about people soley based on appearance, how we can manipulate others and fool ourselves. Her prose is deceptively simple at times. I found myself reading and re-reading many a sentence to decipher the multiple levels of meaning. I closed the book wistfully, wishing for a sequel!
43 people found this helpful
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A. P. Hatcher
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice to read again after so many years
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2021
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This story does not grow old. It was my first "grown up" book when I was a girl and I enjoyed it even more reading it again as a seasoned reader.
4 people found this helpful
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Amazon customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Italy of 50 years ago
Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2005
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The author, born in Mississippi, brings a Southern sensibility to these stories. She has written a series of short stories about Southern women living and visiting in Italy in the 1950's. Ms. Spencer writes beautifully, and her stories are never overly sentimental or superficial. They ring true. Italian words are sprinkled throughout the text which adds to the overall effect.
I found the stories a little "dated" though. These women are trapped here in an era of proper white gloves, cocktail parties and long cigarette holders. The 1950's was a rather repressive time for women, and in many of these stories we find women struggling to be in control of their own lives. They have come to Italy to vacation "abroad"; to fulfill a lifelong dream; to work, or to distance themselves from the past.

By far, the best of the stories is "The Light in the Piazza" which has a warmth and appeal that I found missing in most of the others.
25 people found this helpful
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Sheila A. Ferrari
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2015
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Enchanting stories of Americans in Italy.
2 people found this helpful
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Marti
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2015
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A great collection
2 people found this helpful
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Gina Ieradi
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2015
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Great Book
One person found this helpful
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Aussie Woman 58
3.0 out of 5 stars Nice bag but Im disappointed in the quality of the leather
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2014
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The leather looks like the bag is a seconds or sample. So i wouldnt spend this much again on this brand even reduced.
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robin friedman
4.0 out of 5 stars Elizabeth Spencer's Italian Stories
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2023
Over a long literary career, Elizabeth Spencer (1921 -- 2019) wrote stories and novels set in the American South, where she lived most of her life, and in Italy, where she lived for three years. In 2021, the Library of America published a volume of Spencer's novels and stories. edited by Michael Gorra, as part of its ongoing effort to preserve the best of American writing for a broad audience.

I remember during adolescence seeing the film version of "The Light in the Piazza" (1962) at about the time it was released, and the film has stayed with me. It was only now that I read Elizabeth Spencer's novella on which the film is based. "The Light in the Piazza" (1960) has become Spencer's most famous work and is the basis for a celebrated Tony-award winning musical in addition to the movie. It is available in several sources, including the LOA volume and this earlier book, "The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales" (1996) which collects seven stories, including the title story, that Spencer wrote with Italian settings over her long writing life. I wanted to read Spencer's story at last both for myself and to see if it would be suitable for a book group.

Spencer expressed reservations over how "The Light in the Piazza" came to overshadow her other writing. At one point, she called the story her "albatross". Still, "The Light in the Piazza" is a beautifully written work which deserves the accolades it has received. The novel is set largely in Florence and tells the story of a well-to-do American woman, Margaret Johnson, who travels to Italy with her 26 year old daughter, Clara. As a result of a childhood accident, Clara's mental and emotional development were stunted and she has the mind of a girl of ten. A young Italian man, Fabrizio, becomes attracted to Clara for her beauty, sweetness, and innocence. The attraction blossoms into romance and Margaret must decide how to deal with the Italian suitor and his family and with her own husband, an executive for a cigarette manufacturer in North Carolina. The story is beautifully and lyrically told.

The remaining six stories in the book also explore American Southern women in Italy and how their experiences in Italy affect their view of themselves and of others. Of the six stories, four, "The White Azalea", "The Visit". "The Pincian Gate" and "Wisteria" are vignettes. I want to discuss briefly the two remaining longer stories.

Spencer intended "Knights and Dragons"(1965) as a companion piece to "Light in the Piazza" . It is a difficult, dense work, in its internal and external depictions which has never achieved the popularity of the earlier story. The main character, Martha Ingram, is pursuing a career in Rome following a divorce from her domineering, academic husband. She is tormented by memories and by communications from her ex-husband and his friends. She has an affair in Rome with a married American economist, Jim Wilbourne. In many ways, "Knights and Dragons" is a beautiful, elaborately written story. It is dark in character and demands close reading.

The final story in this collection "The Cousins" tells of five distantly related young people from a small Alabama town who travel together on a trip to Italy. The story moves back and forth in time and concentrates on the brief romantic relationship between Ella Mason and two of her cousins, Ben and Eric. It is a tale of self-discovery as Ella comes at last to understand her past.

Some readers are disappointed with the stories that follow "The Light in the Piazza". These stories lack the immediate appeal of the title story and are introspective and thickly textured, with lengthy descriptive and meandering sentences and paragraphs. In particular, "Kinghts and Dragons" is involved and difficult. I found it and its companion stories ultimately rewarding. Spencer is a prose stylist who explores the heart of her characters in an Italian setting and their efforts to understand themselves.

I enjoyed getting to read "The Light in the Piazza" years after I saw the movie and to learn something of Elizabeth Spencer's other work as well. This collection of stories would be a challenging, but worthwhile selection for a book group. Its primary appeal, however, is for individual readers to think about and enjoy for themselves..

Robin Friedman
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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars though it's not something I would usually read for fun.
Reviewed in Australia on April 8, 2017
Verified Purchase
I read this before performing in the musical The Light in the Piazza, and it was definitely helpful in putting myself in the time and place, though it's not something I would usually read for fun.
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