Claiming A Tradition
Italian American Women Writers
Mary Jo Bona

January 1999
ISBN 0-8093-2258-7 / cloth / $39.95s
224 pages / 6 X 9
American Literature / Women's Studies

Mary Jo Bona reconstructs the literary history and examines the narrative techniques of eight Italian American women's novels from 1940 to the present. Largely neglected until recently, these women's family narratives compel a reconsideration of what it means to be a woman and an ethnic in America.

Bona discusses the novels in pairs according to their focus on Italian American life. She first examines the traditions of italianitá (a flavor of things Italian) that inform and enhance works of fiction. The novelists in that tradition were Mari Tomasi (Like Lesser Gods, 1949) and Marion Benasutti (No Steady Job for Papa, 1966).

Bona then turns to later novels that highlight the Italian American belief in the family's honor and reputation. Conflicts between generations, specifically between autocratic fathers and their children, are central to Octavia Waldo's 1961 A Cup of the Sun and Josephine Gattuso Hendin's 1988 The Right Thing to Do.

Even when writers choose to steer away from the familial focus, Bona notes, their developmental narratives trace the reintegration of characters suffering from a crisis of cultural identity. Relating the characters' struggles to their relationship to the family, Bona examines Diana Cavallo's 1961 A Bridge of Leaves and Dorothy Bryant's 1978 Miss Giardino.

Bona then discusses two innovative novels—Helen Barolini's 1979 Umbertina and Tina De Rosa's 1980 Paper Fish—both of which feature a granddaughter who invokes her grandmother, a godparent figure. Through Barolini's feminist and De Rosa's modernist perspectives, both novels present a young girl developing artistically.

Closing with a discussion of the contemporary terrain Italian American women traverse, Bona examines such topics as sexual identity when it meets cultural identity and the inclusion of italianitá when Italian American identity is not central to the story. Italian American women writers, she concludes, continue in the1980s and 1990s to focus on the interplay between cultural identity and women¹s development.

Mary Jo Bona is an associate professor of English and chair of Women's Studies at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. She has coedited (with Anthony Tamburri) Through the Looking Glass: Italian & Italian/American Images in the Media and edited The Voices We Carry: Recent Italian/American Women's Fiction.

“Many of the novels Bona discusses are almost unknown and out of print, so she does readers an inestimable service with this volume. Essential for feminist collections and recommended for academic collections at all levels.”—Choice

“Claiming a Tradition is the first book-length study of Italian American women writers, and Bona’s clear writing and lucid arguments make it accessible to the casual reader as well as the professional scholar. From the opening, there’s a strong, authoritative and confident voice that guides us along.”—Fra Noi