Although Hill Towns is a coming-of-age story, it's no Romeo and Juliet. There are no young lovers flirting and bedding each other, thinking they've invented the act--this novel centers around adults. The main characters have been married for more than 20 years and believe they know each other absolutely. A trip to Italy shows them there is still much to learn.

Catherine "Cat" Gaillard narrates her own story, beginning with a gothic childhood of the sort that inspires folk ballads and tasteless jokes. Orphaned at age 5 when her parents are killed in a freakish accident, Cat chooses to live on Morgan's Mountain as the ward of chilly, crazy grandparents, though saner family members are willing to take her in. She reasons that, "From there I would always know what was coming. From there I would see it long before it saw me."

The rest of the story follows Cat and her husband, Joe, on their journey of midlife discovery. They both flirt with the possibility of an affair, they bicker, challenge assumptions, make new friends, drink too much, eat fabulous food, and tour Rome, Florence, and Venice. It's like being there. Siddons lets you inhabit Cat's mind and experience her struggle to overcome agoraphobia, her uncertainties about Joe, and, most of all, her neophyte-traveler's view of Italy. Hill Towns is an exploration of a mature relationship, but it's also an effective travelogue. Read it and see if you don't start to crave caffé granita on the piazza. --Brenda Pittsley


From Publishers Weekly
"Americans behave badly in Italy," observes a perspicacious character in Siddon's ( Colony ) latest, an evocative, gothic tale of the dark ties binding a long-married couple. Cat Gaillard's life was irrevocably marred at age five when a truck plowed into her hedonistic parents, who were making love on a bridge. Raised in a small, southern hill town at the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains, Cat found safety within the rarified confines of its resident college and refused ever after to leave. Her agoraphobia entrances her husband Joe, a pedantic dean of English who revels in being Cat's strength and feels threatened when therapy frees her somewhat for a holiday abroad; they will roam across Italy as the unlikely companions of Joe's protege Colin and his new bride Maria. Other fellow travelers include Yolanda, a hilariously bitchy, oversexed Martha Stewart knockoff; Sam, a bluff, sweat-scented painter mesmerized by Cat; and his Machiavellian wife Ada, who will do anything to jumpstart Sam's creative motor. As a gritty, hot wind blows the group through Venice and into Tuscany, the hypocrisies cementing Cat's marriage are exposed. Siddons artfully conjures a violently seductive, sensual world peopled by characters boiling with elemental emotions: fear, lust, aching love. But the deliberately lyric cadences of her prose, though generally rich and enjoyable, are sometimes cloying and forced. $250,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild main selection; author tour. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Catherine and Joe Gaillard travel to Italy and encounter ex-patriot Sam Forrest, as well as other Americans. Actress Marcia Gay Harden's breathy drawl for the story's central character, Catherine ("Cat") , reminds listeners of a sleek, secretive feline. Harden's voice becomes clearer, harder and less tentative as Cat discovers more about herself, her husband and their relationship in their new environment. Sam Forrest, a pivotal character, has a particularly well-toned voice, tough and quick. Harden's success with characterizations is completed by the "ghastly" Orlanda and, indeed, that's the way she sounds. M.G.S. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Kirkus Reviews
Siddons' last big commercial outing (Colony, 1992) was built along a New England-Southern axis. This time, she creates a passel of characters her fans will find reassuringly familiar, and then sends them far out of their ken--to Italy. Catherine Compton--a true Siddons woman in that she can whine engagingly--is from a tiny college town in Tennessee and has a macabre background: her mom and dad died while making love on a bridge. As a result, Cat grows up agoraphobic, refusing to leave the safe, idyllic little world of Trinity College, where her handsome Yankee husband, Joe Gaillard, teaches English. But when Joe's prot‚g‚, Colin Gerard, plans to get married in Italy, Cat faces her fears, books a flight, and--under the light of an Italian sun--finds everything different. Above all, Joe has a midlife crisis, sparked by the loss of his luggage and fanned by Ada Forrest, the wife of famous painter whom the Gaillards meet in Rome. Meanwhile, Sam Forrest takes a shine to Cat; her ``snub, narrow Renaissance look'' inspires him artistically, not to mention romantically. The two couples join the newlyweds on a honeymoon stomp across the boot, slurping bellinis at Florian's in Venice, marveling over Michelangelo's David in Florence, and finally holing up at a villa outside Siena. There, Sam reveals the portrait of Cat he's been working on, which portrays her as St. Theresa--though in sexual, not religious ecstasy. Joe is not amused, but the Gaillards will work things out before they head back to Tennessee, with their horizons expanded. Siddons's theme is the moral and psychological ambiguity that arises from American contact with the European other. Henry James did it better--with a whole lot more subtlety--but, still, Siddons's tried-and-true fans will be pleased. (First printing of 200,000; Literary Guild Dual Selection for September) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description

A single event in her childhood irrevocably marked Catherine Gaillard -- and made it impossible for her to leave her cloistered mountaintop town in Tennessee for the next thirty years. But her devotion to her husband, Joe, and her desire to forever put the incident behind her propel Cat on a life-changing trip to Italy.

Making their way across the countryside of Tuscany with two other couples, Cat and Joe soon feel themselves pulled in different directions, and the fabric of their marriage begins to unravel. Expanding beyond the bounds of a carefree trip, their journey takes them deep into the heart of their relationship...and becomes the ultimate test of their love.


About the Author
Anne River Siddons was born in 1936 in Fairburn, Georgia, a small railroad town just south of Atlanta, where her family has lived for six generations. The only child of a prestigious Atlanta lawyer and his wife, Siddons was raised to be a perfect Southern belle. Growing up, she did what was expected of her: getting straight A's, becoming head cheerleader, the homecoming queen, and then Centennial Queen of Fairburn. At Auburn University she studied illustration, joined the Tri-Delt sorority, and "did the things I thought I should. I dated the right guys. I did the right activities," and wound up voted "Loveliest of the Plains."During her student years at Auburn, the Civil Rights Movement first gained national attention, with the bus boycott in Montgomery and the integration of the University of Alabama. Siddons was a columnist for the Auburn Plainsman at the time, and she wrote, "an innocuous, almost sophomoric column" welcoming integration. The school's administration requested she pull it, and when she refused, they ran it with a disclaimer stating that the university did not share her views. Because she was writing from the deep South, her column gained instant national attention and caused quite "a fracas." When she wrote a second, similarly-minded piece, she was fired. It was her first taste of the power of the written word.After graduation, she worked in the advertising department of a large bank, doing layout and design. But she soon discovered her real talents lay in writing, as she was frequently required to write copy for the advertisements. "At Auburn, and before that when I wrote local columns for the Fairburn paper, writing came so naturally that I didn't value it. I never even thought that it might be a livelihood, or a source of great satisfaction. Southern girls, remember, were taught to look for security." She soon left the bank to join the staff of the recently founded Atlanta magazine. Started by renowned mentor, Jim Townsend, the Atlanta came to life in the 1960's, just as the city Atlanta was experiencing a rebirth. As one of the magazine's first senior editors, Siddons remembers the job as being, "one of the most electrifying things I have ever done in terms of sheer joy." Her work at the magazine brought her in direct contact with the Civil Rights Movement, often sitting with Dr. King's people at the then-black restaurant Carrousel, listening to the best jazz the city had to offer. At age 30, she married Heyward Siddons, eleven years her senior, and the father of four sons from a previous marriage.Her writing career took its next leap when Larry Ashmead, then an editor at Doubleday, noticed an article of hers and wrote to her asking if she would consider doing a book. She assumed the letter was a prank, and that some of her friends had stolen Doubleday stationary. When she didn't respond, Ashmead tracked her down, and Siddons ended up with a two book contract: a collection of essays which became John Chancellor Makes Me Cry, and a novel of her college days, which became Heartbreak Hotel, and was later turned into a film, Heart of Dixie, starring Ally Sheedy.As Ashmead moved on, from Doubleday to Simon & Shuster, then to Harper & Row, Siddons followed, writing a horror story, The House Next Door, which Stephen King described as a prime example of "the new American Gothic," and then Fox's Earth and Homeplace, about the loss of a beloved home.It was in 1988, with the publication of her fifth book, the best-selling Peachtree Road, that Siddons graduated to real commercial success. Described by her friend and peer, Pat Conroy, as "the Southern novel for our generation." With almost a million copies in print, Peachtree Road ushered Siddons onto the literary fast track. Since then the novels have been coming steadily, about one each year, with her readership and writer's fees increasing commensurately. In 1992 she received $3.25 million from HarperCollins for a three book deal, and then, in 1994, HarperCollins gave Siddons $13 million for a four book deal. Now, she and her Heyward shuttle between a sprawling home in Brookhaven, Atlanta, and their summer home in Brooklin, Maine. She finds Down East, "such a relief after the old dark morass of the South. It's like getting a gulp of clean air...I always feel in Maine like I'm walking on the surface of the earth. In the South, I always feel like I'm knee-deep." But she still remains tied to her home in the South, where she does most of her writing. Each morning, Siddons dresses, puts on her makeup and then heads out to the backyard cottage that serves as her office. And each night, she and her husband edit the day's work by reading it aloud over evening cocktails. Siddons' success has naturally brought comparisons with another great Southern writer, Margaret Mitchell, but Siddons insists that the South she writes about is not the romanticized version found in Gone With the Wind. Instead, her relationship with the South is loving, but realistic. "It's like an old marriage or a long marriage. The commitment is absolute, but the romance has long since worn off...I want to write about it as it really is: I don't want to romanticize it."

ANNOTATION

Siddons' phenomenal national bestseller is a rare story of depth and deliverance. Spending two months on the New York Times bestseller list, Hill Towns explores the structure of marriage as a middle-aged wife and her English professor husband leave the safe haven of their Tennessee home and travel through Italy with friends.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Something terrible happened to Catherine Gaillard when she was a small child - something so traumatic that for thirty years she couldn't bring herself to leave Montview, the cloistered mountaintop college town in Tennessee where she grew up. But she has not missed the "real" world. Cat's life on the mountain has been wonderful. She adores her husband, who buttresses her against the world outside; she cherishes her country garden and her friends from the college. Montview has served her well. Now, for the first time, she and Joe have ventured out of their haven into the careening panorama of Italy to attend the Roman wedding of their Montview friends Colin and Maria. From Rome they will travel to Venice and on through the hill towns of Tuscany, where, Cat feels, she will be up high and safe again. But at first none of Italy seems safe to her. It is frantic and hot; its people seem totally alien, its raw sensuality terrifying. Gradually, however, Cat becomes enthralled by Italy's hectic beauty and vitality. She is seduced by everything: art and architecture, food and wine, the sheer living weight of its history. She burns to share it all with Joe, but as her old fear heals and she grows stronger, he seems to turn away from her. It is almost as if Italy diminishes Joe. The only person Cat feels real connection with is Sam Forrest, a celebrated and charismatic American painter who joins the four Southerners on the trip through the hill towns of Tuscany. As she has done in the past to great acclaim, Anne Rivers Siddons probes deeply into the multiple meanings of love and relationships refracted through the prism of a woman's eyes. Endowed with a marvelous Italian setting and rich, compelling characters, Hill Towns is a rare novel of depth and deliverance. It is the work of a gifted writer at the height of her storytelling powers.

FROM THE CRITICS

BookList - Donna Seaman

Best-seller Siddons' novels typically focus on the struggle of a southern gal trying to make it in an alien realm. While her latest novel fits this pattern, it ultimately transcends it, as Siddons pushes herself to new heights of intensity and resonance. This complex tour de force begins on a spellbound mountain in Tennessee where Cat's grief over the bizarre death of her parents evolves into a chronic fear of travel. She is unable to leave her mountain sanctuary, a circumstance Joe, her professor husband, seems to fully accept until their brave, blind daughter goes off to college. Inspired, if not shamed, by her daughter, Cat finally confronts her illness and, after therapy, agrees to accompany Joe on an ambitious Italian tour. Their insular marriage will never be the same. Classic innocents abroad, they end up as guests, and pawns, of the Forrests. Sexy, selfish Sam is a world-famous painter; Ada, exquisite and ruthless, is more manager than wife. As Cat lets Sam paint her portrait, altering her sense of her self, and Joe is addled by Ada, they are further discombobulated by the heady atmospheres of Rome, Venice, and the hill towns of Tuscany. Siddons is keenly attuned to the power of these fabled locales and brilliantly describes them as bewitched and perversely saturated with both beauty and death. As Cat struggles against manipulation and deceit, she casts off the chrysalis of her fear, bringing this evocative, intelligent, and classy tale to a grand crescendo.

AudioFile - Margaret G. Senatore

Catherine and Joe Gaillard travel to Italy and encounter ex-patriot Sam Forrest, as well as other Americans. Actress Marcia Gay Harden's breathy drawl for the story's central character, Catherine ("Cat") , reminds listeners of a sleek, secretive feline. Harden's voice becomes clearer, harder and less tentative as Cat discovers more about herself, her husband and their relationship in their new environment. Sam Forrest, a pivotal character, has a particularly well-toned voice, tough and quick. Harden's success with characterizations is completed by the "ghastly" Orlanda and, indeed, that's the way she sounds. M.G.S. ￯﾿ﾽAudioFile, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Siddons' last big commercial outing (Colony, 1992) was built along a New England-Southern axis. This time, she creates a passel of characters her fans will find reassuringly familiar, and then sends them far out of their ken—to Italy. Catherine Compton—a true Siddons woman in that she can whine engagingly—is from a tiny college town in Tennessee and has a macabre background: her mom and dad died while making love on a bridge. As a result, Cat grows up agoraphobic, refusing to leave the safe, idyllic little world of Trinity College, where her handsome Yankee husband, Joe Gaillard, teaches English. But when Joe's prot￯﾿ﾽg￯﾿ﾽ, Colin Gerard, plans to get married in Italy, Cat faces her fears, books a flight, and—under the light of an Italian sun—finds everything different. Above all, Joe has a midlife crisis, sparked by the loss of his luggage and fanned by Ada Forrest, the wife of famous painter whom the Gaillards meet in Rome. Meanwhile, Sam Forrest takes a shine to Cat; her "snub, narrow Renaissance look" inspires him artistically, not to mention romantically. The two couples join the newlyweds on a honeymoon stomp across the boot, slurping bellinis at Florian's in Venice, marveling over Michelangelo's David in Florence, and finally holing up at a villa outside Siena. There, Sam reveals the portrait of Cat he's been working on, which portrays her as St. Theresa—though in sexual, not religious ecstasy. Joe is not amused, but the Gaillards will work things out before they head back to Tennessee, with their horizons expanded. Siddons's theme is the moral and psychological ambiguity that arises from American contact with the European other. Henry James did itbetter—with a whole lot more subtlety—but, still, Siddons's tried-and-true fans will be pleased. (First printing of 200,000; Literary Guild Dual Selection for September)