In Italian culture, to be divorced, alone and female was the unholy trinity. It didn't matter that you paid your own mortgage or were leading a semi-functional adult life; it was simply understood you would eventually spiral into alcoholism, drug addiction or prostitution. Possibly all three. The fact that I hadn't yet succumbed to any of these fates was seen less as a triumph and more as a temporary, suspicious reprieve.
At the heart of Maya Caruso's sharp, tender, insightful and wickedly ironic novel is Silvia Junior: a 42-year-old Italo-Australian workaholic who's nailed career success but flunked personal fulfilment. Romance? She ghosted it sometime after her divorce.
Enter her mother, Silvia Senior: a widowed Italian matriarch with opinions laced with old-school patriarchy and a Rolodex of gossip-hungry nonnas. She's made it her full-time job to remind Junior that she's alone, unmarried and probably infertile. Their relationship is equal parts love, loathing and mutual dependency - a tangle of guilt, meatballs and inherited trauma.
When an old friend resurfaces, Junior's carefully collapsed world starts to expand. There's flirting, there's dancing, there's actual joy. Shockingly, Senior gets swept up in the action too, dipping a cautious toe into the world of dating.
But as both women step out of their comfort zones, life pushes back. Chaos ensues, feelings get messy, and not even a solid plate of lasagne can fix everything. Silvia is a funny, heartbreaking look at what happens when women - especially ones raised to hold it all together - turn their backs on expectations and go in search of themselves.
