The Sun and Other Stars by Brigid Pasulka

Published by Simon & Schuster on February 4, 2014

I'm a sucker for books that make me laugh out loud and then leave me sighing with appreciation for their subtle and touching moments. I am definitely not a sucker for love stories, but every now and then I'm totally entranced by one that is honest and original. I'm also a sucker for books that make me feel something I don't ordinarily feel. This one made me feel the joy of calcio (the Italian name for soccer), at least as it is played by aging but passionate fans who have a few weeks of glory kicking a ball around with a couple of authentic stars. But calcio is merely a backdrop to an engaging novel that is both a coming-of-age story and a father-son family drama, with a couple of love stories thrown in to sweeten the plot.

The less favored of two sons but the only one still living, Etto works in the family butcher shop, where he believes he is treated more as a slave than a son (the difference, if the is one, between slavery and family is one of the novel's themes). Etto's brother Luca is buried in an empty school's untended calcio field where Etto's father insisted he be interred. Etto's American mother died under circumstances that continue to anger him. Feeling alone in the world at twenty-two, confiding his thoughts only to his brother's headstone, Etto is stuck in San Benedetto, waiting for his life to "keep piling up" until he is "an old, bitter man." His life in the butcher shop has been planned out for him by his father and grandfather, and while others tell him he should be comforted by a life that is unburdened by hard decisions, Etto isn't so sure. He feels he is living with his face pressed to the glass, watching other people live real lives. Even worse, he feels increasingly estranged from his father, who is himself becoming "an old, bitter man," at least in his interaction with Etto.

Etto has few social skills, particularly with women, and few opportunities to polish them. He is therefore unprepared to respond (and so responds poorly) to the mild flirtation of a young woman named Zhuki who is spending three weeks in San Benedetto with her brother, a famous Ukranian soccer player named Yuri who now plays for an Italian team but might be corrupt. Etto would like to compete for Zhuki's attention but he is competing against athletes who have abs like tortoise shells. Etto has little competence on the calcio field. Having inherited his mother's love of art, he is better with a brush than he is with a soccer ball. Etto works out his frustration by recreating a version of the Sistine Chapel ceiling on the ceiling of the closed school, substituting people he knows for biblical figures (sometimes in unflattering ways). Still, Yuri insists that all problems can be fixed on a soccer field. That is the power of calcio.

Etto is a bit like the Italian Holden Caulfield, unimpressed with the phoniness of other people's lives but not sure what to do with his own. Like all good coming-of-age novels, The Sun and Other Stars is about self-awareness and making choices and the possibility of change -- not just changing where you live and what you do, but who you are and how you behave. There is more than a little wisdom to be mined from this novel, some of it coming from unlikely sources. The greatest lesson is: the power of calico is the power of hope.

Brigid Paasulka writes with zest and flair, bringing to life a memorable town populated with likable characters. I love the description of what occurs "whenever two or more are gathered in San Benedetto -- moving mouths and flying hands pulling air into air, crafting grand plans from nothing and into nothing." The Sun and Other Stars pushed all my emotional and literary buttons without being overtly manipulative. That earns it a strong recommendation.

RECOMMENDED