Thanks to authors like Peter Mayle and Frances Mayes, a whole subset of travel memoirs is now devoted to the theme of restoring old houses in Europe. While most authors use the home as a vehicle to examine the surrounding culture, David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell tilt their measure decidedly on the side of home decor. "Nothing tells you more about a people than their houses," Leavitt and Mitchell write, as they set out to "construct a past based on our own private notions of comfort, upon which we could glance with pleasure in some hypothetical future." While initially daunted by the task of restoring a country house in bureaucracy-plagued Italy, the two dive in with gusto when they find Podere Fiume (River Farm) in Maremma, a little known part of Tuscany. Unlived in for more than 20 years, the farmhouse's downstairs is composed entirely of animal stalls, complete with stone troughs, while its two acres are lined with olive and fruit trees and a small creek. The authors tell of tapping into the Italian tradition of craftsmanship, taking on iron-fitters, lamp and lampshade makers, wood carvers, and furniture restorers. They design their own couch, reconstruct an 1803 fireplace, and commission a copy of an 18th-century Venetian bookcase with secret doors for CDs. They even recount the paint colors and fabric designs they consider. Needless to say, the density of detail they devote to their decor will mostly be of interest to those who pour over design magazines like House and Garden and World of Interiors, as the authors do. Fortunately, they also devote some of their short but precise chapters to humorous and telling bits about Italy--the habits, feuds, and "poetry and madness" of Italian bureaucracy--as well as to portraits of some of their more interesting neighbors, such as Pepe the iron-fitter and Pina the restaurateur. Written from the point of view of expatriates who live among but are not of, In Maremma offers an interesting, sometimes overdone and other times right-on-target portrait of a less glamorous if no less interesting part of Tuscany than Frances Mayes's.


From Publishers Weekly
Novelist Leavitt and Mitchell (co-editors of The Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories) relate their first two years restoring and inhabiting a run-down farmhouse in Maremma, the poorest and (to tourists) least-known province of Tuscany. Each short chapter describes a different aspect of their lives there, from the incredible lengths of red tape involved in obtaining a driver's license (a holdover, according to a local restaurateur, from the fascist government's inclination "to make private life as difficult as possible, to discourage independent thinking") to "sheep jams" on the roads, for which local procedure is to drive right into the middle of the herd. The authors find that, in this "most boring of all European countries," "one grows to love boredom." Indeed, the authors can devote eons to decorating and landscaping. But they also "profit... from such old-fashioned... diversions as reading, listening to music, gardening, painting, doing jigsaw puzzles, cooking, playing with the dog." The character sketches generally illustrate the country's leisurely pace, e.g., their architect Domenico, when faced with a problem, suggests that they "study" it ("`Study,' in Italian, is synonymous with `put off'"). Although much of the book, replete with rapturous descriptions of furniture, drapes and paint, might be better suited to Elle D‚cor, the nuanced, sometimes funny depictions of the people of Maremma and the premium placed on quality of life are worthy of authenticity-hungry travelogue readers. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
When Leavitt and Mitchell decided to move from Rome into a dilapidated 1950s farmhouse in impoverished rural southern Tuscany, their own comedy of errors ensued. Is this a gay Under the Tuscan Sun, then? Not quite. On their voyage to build home and hearth in the "real Tuscany," they discovered Italy in the fullest, truest, and often most aggravating sense. In this series of essays, the two writers report encountering their share of headaches--the nuances of Italian government bureaucrats, ancient nonnas warring over recipes for Acqua Cotta, inept and expensive skilled laborers--and becoming the subject of town gossip and debate over their choice of decor. They were overwhelmed, however, by the generosity of spirit that has kept the people of this rugged and bleak terrain together since the Etruscans reigned some 2,500 years ago. Through touching reminiscences, Leavitt and Mitchell show that they have found a Tuscany genuine in its people, landscape, food, and culture. Michael Spinella
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
A delightful compilation of the couple's humorous stories about getting acclimated to Maremma -- the poorest province of Tuscany -- David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell's In Maremma stands apart from all other travelogues about the pleasures of life in Italy. Combine one abandoned old farmhouse, a host of eccentric Italians, and some great decorating tips, and the result is a fast-paced book that leaves the reader chuckling aloud.

Leavitt and Mitchell's book reads like a conversation one would have with a good girlfriend over a fattening brownie and coffee. They divulge the dirt on fellow townies and poke fun at themselves -- mostly over decorating disasters, such as the orange walls they ended up with when they asked for a "a pale earth pigment based colour" called "single cream." Candid and unpretentious, In Maremma leaves the reader wanting even more tales from the duo.

Unlike other authors, who focus mostly on the gastronomic pleasures of Italy, Leavitt and Mitchell confess to getting sick of pesto, prosciutto, ricotta, and pasta. At one point, after three years of dining on fine Italian food, they craved nothing so much as peanut butter. Coco Puffs. BLTs. Even Big Macs! But shhh -- don't tell that to the people back home in America: "On visits home we behaved grandly, lorded our superior knowledge of European cookery over our friends and families, even corrected their errors. ('No, you never put parmesan cheese on clam sauce!')."

From the catchy chapter titles, such as "The House We Did Not Buy" and "Boredom," to the authors' anecdotes of how they morphed into Italians, In Maremma keeps the reader enraptured. (Soozan Baxter)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"In 1997 David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell bought a house in southern Tuscany: not a villa but a dilapidated farmhouse dating from the late 1950's and abandoned for more than twenty years. In Maremma recounts their restoration of the house, as well as the gradual process by which two Americans became initiated into a part of Italy - and a part of Italian life - that foreigners rarely see."--BOOK JACKET.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Novelist Leavitt and Mitchell (co-editors of The Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories) relate their first two years restoring and inhabiting a run-down farmhouse in Maremma, the poorest and (to tourists) least-known province of Tuscany. Each short chapter describes a different aspect of their lives there, from the incredible lengths of red tape involved in obtaining a driver's license (a holdover, according to a local restaurateur, from the fascist government's inclination "to make private life as difficult as possible, to discourage independent thinking") to "sheep jams" on the roads, for which local procedure is to drive right into the middle of the herd. The authors find that, in this "most boring of all European countries," "one grows to love boredom." Indeed, the authors can devote eons to decorating and landscaping. But they also "profit... from such old-fashioned... diversions as reading, listening to music, gardening, painting, doing jigsaw puzzles, cooking, playing with the dog." The character sketches generally illustrate the country's leisurely pace, e.g., their architect Domenico, when faced with a problem, suggests that they "study" it ("`Study,' in Italian, is synonymous with `put off'"). Although much of the book, replete with rapturous descriptions of furniture, drapes and paint, might be better suited to Elle D cor, the nuanced, sometimes funny depictions of the people of Maremma and the premium placed on quality of life are worthy of authenticity-hungry travelogue readers. (May 1) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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