she's not bad looking for someone that old

Donna Fanciullo, a novel by R. M. Kelleher

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Donna is the Italian word for woman. Fanciullo is the Italian word for child; used in the masculine here, it would be translated into English as boy. Matt, Irish-American, is a boy (Actually, he's 16 years old, so don't tell him I called him a boy.), who is accused of stealing from his slightly off-center father. Donna, Italian-American, is the woman, 35 years old (Although, according to Matt, she's not bad looking for someone that old.), who takes him in when his father kicks him out. Most of the novel is spent exploring their relationship. It's a complicated relationship; it doesn't take too long before they begin to find each other attractive, although they barely have the guts to admit this to themselves, never mind to each other.

Donna's pretty good at understanding herself. Matt does his damnedest to keep up. They both go through real life, sometimes together and sometimes separately. Donna goes on a few dates with a real jerk. Matt ends up getting a ride home with a stop-off at the driver's home, which is filled with young women and older men who are on drugs, where he’s taken advantage of. They both grow, they both learn, they're both extremely real. Kelleher really knows how to make you care about a fictional character. In fact, I blame Kelleher's able writing as my excuse for thinking through most of the novel: So, are they going to do it, or what?

Every scene blends italianità with the rest of Donna and there’s the way Kelleher throws in objections to bigotry and sexism and the way she speaks out against stereotypes, but only enough to make her point, not enough to interrupt the story or be a pain in the neck. And although they’re both catholic, neither one of them is limited by their religion.

It's just the way their ethnicity, for both of them, fits so easily into their souls that gets to me. There's nothing artificial about it; it's not something outside of them; their identification doesn’t depend on a few predictable words; they don't have neon signs over their heads saying Italian or Irish. They just are and it goes very deep.

It’s a good story, well written with real people. Read it for that and, while you’re at it, notice how you can make a fictional character a real Italian-American without making her a stereotype.