'A Girl Returned' celebrates the different kinds of intimate feminine relationships

pc: Cait Malilay 

Can you imagine if you found out that the people who raised you weren't actually your parents?

"A Girl Returned," by Donatella Di Peirtrantonio, tells the story of a 13-year-old girl in the mid-1970s Abruzzo whose life is turned upside down when one day she is dropped off at a house full of strangers, who happen to be her real family.

Unnamed, she is referred to as "l'arminuta," the returned. 

The phrase, "the returned," implies that she becomes objectified. 

She not only returns to her real family, but her nickname, which was labeled by her classmates,  emphasizes that she lacks a sense of identity, and feels discarded and unwanted. 

"One had given me up with the milk still on her tongue, the other had given me back at the age of 13. I was a child of separations, false or unspoken kinships, distances. I no longer knew who I came from. In my heart, I don't even now," (Di Peirtrantonio 115).

It turns out that who she thought were her parents were actually a distant aunt and uncle.

Raised as an only child, her real family consists of a mother, father, four brothers and one sister.

The story opens with "l'arminuta" being dropped off by her uncle and their separation is very dramatic.

The author cuts straight to the chase to emphasize the abruptness.

The person who answers the door is her little sister, Adriana, and readers will notice right away that she is a very bold and very outspoken 10-year-old.

It is Adriana who she immediately forms an unbreakable bond with and they develop this sort of symbiotic relationship.

Another key sibling that helps push the story forward is the oldest, Vincenzo, who is 18 and quite the rebel. 

Without giving away too much, there's this weird sexual attraction that she has for him.

There's a point in the book where he sexually assaults her and she mistakens this encounter for chemistry.

What the book is primarily focused on is finding oneself.

It's a very complex situation and because it's told in the first-person limited point of view, the author leaves the readers just as confused as the narrator.

The narrator is the girl telling the story many years later as an adult and she admits that she still doesn't know where she truly belongs.

13 is a very critical age in developing, so not only is she beginning to find herself just as any teenager, but she must also deal with that extra obstacle of adapting to a completely new environment.

She is forced to accept this new reality. 

The author does an excellent job at distinguishing between her two mothers, the one who raised her and her birth mother.

The girl refers to her birth mother as "the other mother," and her real father as "the father."

As the story approaches the end, readers will see how it begins to shift.

Class distinctions and race relations

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"I wasn't acquainted with hunger and I lived like a foreigner among the hungry. The privilege I bore from my earlier life distinguished me, isolated me in the family...I spoke another language and I no longer knew who I belonged to." - (Di Peirtrantonio 101)

The protagonist was raised in an upper-middle class family in a seaside city as an only child, whereas her much larger family, that lives in a more remote region in a small town, is impoverished. Their social status is one of the reasons why her birth mother decided to give her up. This can be observed in how they behave at the dinner table, the family's lack of education, what they have for meals and their clothing.

"It was colorless inside, made with stale bread and a few bits of meat...After a few days I would learn to compete for food and stay focused on my plate to defend it from aerial fork raids. But that night I lost the little that the mother's hand had added to my scant ration." - (Di Peirtrantonio 18)

The novel also touches on the stereotypes of Gypsies.

There's this sigma of them that they like to steal and that they're always up to trouble. 

Vincenzo's friends are Gypsy and he hangs out with them at night, sometimes not returning home for days, to his father's dismay. 

His father even tells one of his friends that Gypsies are not welcome in his home. 

Di Peirtrantonio celebrates the different kinds of relationships between women. 

There are many strong female characters that readers will be introduced to that are connected with the main character, including her best friend, Patrizia.

The ending is very touching and it's an absolute twist. 

I highly recommend this book for readers who enjoy books about adapting to change, social class differences, celebrating powerful women and stories filled with drama. 

There's also a film adaptation of it in Italian called "L'Arminuta" that came out in 2021, which I have yet to watch, but am definitely looking forward to. 

I'm also anticipating to read the sequel, "A Sister's Story," which is about the protagonist and Adriana when they're older. 

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Here's the version I read...
Pietrantonio, Di Donatella, and Ann Goldstein. A Girl Returned. Europa Editions, 2020.