April 16, 2001
First-time author Rips, formerly a successful trial lawyer, ran off to the Etruscan village of Sutri with his painter wife and new baby. In Sutri, the likably neurotic author spent day after day in the cafe, reflecting on the notion that he "was unable to produce or even reflect on anything that I or anyone else would consider useful." Seemingly in the throes of a pre-midlife crisis, Rips presents his quirks at face value, sans psychospeak, with hilarious, moving or unsettling effect. In a small, ancient town, one might expect to find citizens repressed by long-standing social mores, an assumption both confirmed and disproved by the many eccentrics: the man who lights his cigarettes with a magnifying glass; an illiterate postman who leaves the villagers to sort their own mail; a blind bootmaker who claims he can make a perfectly sized boot just by looking at a person's foot (he can't, but still keeps his customers); and Pasquale, a terrifying brute with a penchant for smelling feet. Rips warms to Sutri, finding it "an archaic society... that had... forged a collective identity and story and that had a mystical attachment to both." The kindhearted, brutal and idiosyncratic Sutrinis' nonsensical ideas about causality and the author's peculiar, often bleak worldview complement each other perfectly. In tiny, glittering vignettes, Rips paints an extraordinary picture of interwoven sublimity and absurdity.
May 15, 2001
Yet another in the proliferation of "I lived abroad" books, this unemotional and self-absorbed narrative explores Rips's stay in Sutri an Italian hill town near Rome where his artist wife finds an available house and studio where she can pursue a new series of paintings. Rips abandons his legal practice to live an indolent life and spends his days drinking coffee in a local cafe while collecting anecdotes about Sutri's citizens. In a town noted for its beans and riding boots, he assembles more than a dozen surreal accounts of the area's most peculiar inhabitants: Aurellio Mezzadonna is reputed to have a cat's paw in place of a hand; Pasquale's nose is enormous and reacts painfully to the odor of feet; and Frank, the shoe storeowner, is a hermaphrodite. There's little mention of Sheila, Rips's wife, and even less of his infant daughter. Almost as an aside, Rips includes the menus of a few meals and relevant recipes. As a whole, the book lacks the wit and warmth of such classics as Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence or Frances Mayes's Under the Tuscan Sun. This is probably results from Rips having lived his entire adult life in hotels. Not recommended. Janet Ross, formerly with Sparks Branch Lib., NV
Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.