A Kiss From Maddalena is a story about the poetry of life told through the shroud of love. Set in 1943 in the war-torn village of Santa Cecilia, Italy, Castellani lyrically wraps his readers in a daguerreotype-like word cloak and transports them into the lives of vito and Maddalena.Vito Leone, a 17 year old, is one of the few males in Santa Cecilia who have not gone off to war. Dubbed the village clown, living alone with his mother who suffers from a chronic mental disorder, Vito is nevertheless determined to capture a kiss -- "un bacio" -- from the village beauty -- Maddalena Piccinelli. After Vito ingeniously gathers kisses from most of the young girls in the village, he finally gets a kiss from Maddalena. Before Vito can be sure of Maddalenas love, however, the village comes under attack by the Germans and Maddalenas family decides to flee to the countryside for the duration of the war.
Vito is left in the mostly deserted village where he cares for his mother and rebuilds Maddalenas family home after the Germans destroy it. When the Piccinellis return to Santa Cecilia, they are astonished to find their house preserved and even more surprised that the work was done by Vito. Vito presses his case for the hand of Maddalena, but her family is very reluctant to accede to his request as they have a more grandiose suiter in mind for this most beautiful daughter -- a prosperous Italian-American, Antonio Grasso.
The tale of how the dilemma is resolved provides the reader with an intricately woven tapestry of thoughts, feelings, and reactions and left this reader with a deeper understanding of those truths that neither war nor evil can unravel or destroy. A Kiss From Maddalena is a love story. It is also a war story, but not a war story of soldiers and battles -- rather, a war story of the people left behind, the ordinary people trying to carry on with their lives during a war, doing their own brand of fighting. It is a tug of war of the heart, between young and old, love and family, men and women.
Castellani has captured that sense of family, of belonging that we bring to adulthood from our childhoods. His tale is a tale of love versus the power of family, of love versus the power of acceptance, of love versus the power of approval. Castellani tells us that a kiss is more than a kiss and we believe him. When Maddalena gave her kiss to Vito it was her bond and her trust. She did not break that trust.
