Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta

The memorable opening scene has Josephine Alibrandi struggling with a multiple choice questionnaire in her final school year and falling foul of Sister Gregory as it is from “Hot Pants” magazine. Brazening it out in front of the class Josie comes across as funny and smart with a healthy disrespect for the system. She is attending St Martha’s Catholic school on a scholarship, a school dominated by rich, mostly Anglo-Saxon Australians where her friends are Anna, Seraphina and Lee. She lives with her single parent mother, Christina in a terrace house in Glebe. Josie’s mother works so she has to go to her Nonna’s after school and they are both strict with her so she is not able to go out a lot. In spite of being born in Australia as was her mother, they maintain strong Italian cultural ties in spite of the fact that the Italian community rejected them because of her mother’s unwed status. Josie is very close to her mother and knows her father’s name is Michael Andretti and that they broke up before he knew she was pregnant so when he returns to the area things get complicated.

The story has stood the test of time and along with the issues of feelings of not fitting in, there are the timeless issues of coming of age, negotiating young adult relationships and envisioning a future pathway. There have been successful film and play adaptations and now there is this lovely hard back edition. 30 years ago a single mother was able to buy a terrace house in Glebe, there were no mobile phones, the internet was in its infancy and Aids was killing many but this is a well told story that has stood the test of time. In the preface Melina Marchetti looks back on the thirty years since the first edition and reflects on its enduring popularity. She admits it has defined her but “Best of all it has made me grapple less with the questions of who I am and where I come from”, may it help others for many years to come.

Themes: Italian Australian culture, Single parent family, Friendship, Relationships, Coming of age.

Sue Speck