L'America by Martha McPhee

Martha McPhee
ISBN:9780156032360

About the book:
In the brilliant Greek sunshine of a small Aegean island, Beth and Cesare
meetbeginning a transformative love affair that spans two continents,
two decades, and two lifetimes. Cesare is a privileged Italian boy, raised
in a prosperous town where his family has lived for five hundred years;
Beth, an ambitious American dreamer born to hippies and raised on a
commune. The events of September 11 serve as a catalyst for the
unfolding of their story, in which passion struggles against the inexorable
force of patria.
The novel of the American in Europe has a long and lustrous pedigree.
LAmerica adds to this lineage, an evocative portrait of the intersection
between Europe and America, the old and the new, and the dizzying, life-
changing power of first love.
About the author:
MARTHA McPHEEs novel Gorgeous Lies was a National Book Award Finalist. She is the
recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. She teaches at Hofstra University and lives in New York.
Discussion Questions:
1. What tone is launched by the novels opening vignette, capturing the legacy of Benvenuto and
Valeria? What is evoked by the recurring image of Cellinis fresco?

2. What is the effect of the unconventional timeline used in the novel? In what way are history
and the present often inextricable?

3. Chapter 3 begins with the lines, Love is a victory over time. Love steals from death. Does
this prove to be true for Beth and Cesare? Was it true for Beths parents?

4. What do Beth and Sylvia discover about men during the travels of their youth? Are they
typical of girls their age? How are they influenced by Chas?

5. Whos the better friend: Sylvia or Beatrice? What dynamic is at work in Beths friendship
with Bea?

6. Discuss the effect of the novels varied settings, from the commune to New York to Europe. In
what ways are Beth and Cesare transformed when immersed in one anothers communities?
What do they see that only an outsider could discern?

7. Standing in her doorway, the tuxedo-clad Cesare tells Beth he does not know who he is. What
are the true reasons for his sense of alienation from himself? Are any of the novels characters
able to discern their true selves and live authentically?

8. What did Beths father and grandmother impart to her about the nature of love and
relationships? How was Beth influenced by the memory of Claire?

9. What accounts for the deep attraction between Cesare and Beththe navete of first love,
sheer exoticism, or something deeper? Can the nature of such an intense attraction ever really be
understood? Would their love have withered if one of them had made a cultural compromise,
enabling them to marry?

10. Compare the family dynamics in which Cesare and Beth were raised. Are there any parallels
between Jacksons commune and the idealism and protocols in Cesares ancestry?
11. Discuss the notions of chance and fate as they play out in LAmerica. What outcomes did
Bear propel in Beths storyline? What recurring cycles of fate, such as daughters losing their
mothers, occur in the novel?

12. In what way is food significant throughout the novel? How do Beths culinary experiences
abroad capture excitement of the new world she is encountering? How does that cuisine compare
to the food philosophies of her fathers utopian farm? Why is Beth drawn to be a chef?

13. How would you characterize Cesares and Beths marriages? How might their spouses have
described these marriages had the novel been told from their points of view?

14. In opening and closing scenes of LAmerica, Cesares thoughts of Beth blur with thoughts of
his young family. How did you react when you realized that September 11 was the catalyst for
these scenes, and for the denouement of their story?

15. What approaches are demonstrated in McPhees previous novels and in this one? What are
the hallmarks of her literary style? How might Beth have fared in the Furey-Cooper family,
featured in Bright Angel Time and Gorgeous Lies?