Vintage Contemporaries / I Give It to You

PART 1

Villa Chiara

Villa Chiara is protected from the world outside by a high stone wall and an ancient gate with the initial S swirled in iron on each wing. The dusty, sunstruck road, scarcely wide enough for two small cars to pass each other without knocking their mirrors, cleaves to the wall for half a mile. On the far side, ranks of iconic sunflowers stand at attention like stolid soldiers, indifferent to the elements, awaiting their orders.

When you turn in to the gates, what strikes you is that, though very near the road, the sparse yard that serves as a parking area feels private and cool. This gravel and packed-­dirt patch is closed on four sides. On two, gardens of roses and herbs, backed by plum and apricot trees, disperse gentle fragrances into the hot afternoon air. Parallel to the gate, the charming limonaia stands with its back to the wall. Glass and verdigris copper doors glint beneath the shelter of the rafters, which extend over a small stone terrace. Artfully placed hip-­high pots of rosemary and lemon trees create a cool and semiprivate sitting area.

On the fourth side, the imposing pale pink facade of the villa closes in the drive. A graceful triangular double staircase rises from two directions to a wide landing before the arched manorial door. The villa has three floors. The lowest, behind the staircase, is the cantina, an unfinished space used to store farm equipment as well as wine and olive oil, both products of the property. The two upper levels are lined with tall shuttered windows looking out over the drive. The house isn t grand but rather grandly substantial, and because of the perimeter wall it is impossible to view it from any distance. The Villa Chiara thus creates for itself an encapsulated space, peaceful, retired, without views.

I arrived at Villa Chiara a week before I met its owner, Signora Beatrice Salviati Bartolo Doyle. I knew only a few facts about her. She was employed as a professor of Italian at a small

VALERIE MARTIN is the author of eleven novels, four collections of short fiction, and a biography of Saint Francis of Assisi, titled Salvation. She has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as the Kafka Prize (for Mary Reilly) and Britain's Orange Prize (for Property).

A novel of philosophical and creative inquiry, cleverly plotted and packed with great characters.... Immensely satisfying.... [A] beautifully fractal novel.
The Guardian

The stories at the heart of Valerie Martin s latest novel, I Give It to You, are freely, but not always innocently, shared. And what Martin s narrator does with them raises prickly questions of ownership, artistic license and ethical responsibility.
The New York Times Book Review

Martin s prose, while effortlessly readable, can take deliciously unexpected turns . . . As enticing as the Salviati family s history is, it s the sense of a game being played on multiple levels that lends I Give It to You its deepest powers of seduction.
The Seattle Times

"Valerie Martin has always been a consummate storyteller, but in her new novel she tackles the question of where do a writer s stories come from. And to whom does a story belong? The person it happened to or the one who tells it. In some ways all writers betray their subjects, and Valerie Martin digs into the heart of that betrayal. Reminiscent of Rachel Cusk s Outline Martin masterfully gives voice to those who have been silenced, whose stories would be lost were it not for a writer to retell it."
Mary Morris, author of All the Way to the Tigers

"Yes, the narrator of Martin s new novel is a middle-aged American woman vacationing in Tuscany, but this prickly, uncomfortably relevant dive into personal and societal ethics is no escapist romance . . . Martin parses personal and social politics with methodical care and a reserved tone reminiscent of Edith Wharton.
Kirkus, (starred review)

Praise for Sea Lovers:

She always produces something unexpected and revelatory.  
Jane Smiley, author of Perestroika in Paris

Praise for Ghost of the Mary Celeste:

"A writer of immense talent and insight."