Been Here a Thousand Years A Novel [Paperback]

In a tiny, ancient Italian hill town, where the land gives little and money and food are scarce, Don Francesco Falcone is a man to be reckoned with: rich, powerful, restless, intransigent. When he meets another force of nature, Concetta, a penniless but indestructible farmworker, the stage is set for the creation of an exceptional family: generations of strong, complicated boys and, especially, girls. The battles among them are many as they live through historical upheaval and private passions.

Their stories are told by Gioia, the last of the line, a woman of our times who fights tirelessly against convention. She is the product of a family of memorable women who know how to survive, and also how to make something fantastical and rich out of their lives: with their hands they create delicate and complex embroideries, while their minds embroider endless, elaborate stories.

In this sweeping, unforgettable novel, Mariolina Venezia portrays five generations of the Falcone family. Through their complicated, funny, tragic, and astonishing stories, Venezia also recounts a century and a half of Italy's tumultuous history.Been Here a Thousand Yearsis a testament to the Falcone family, and also to the vibrant, irrational, irresistible country that produced it.

1. The novel begins with a handwritten family tree and a cryptic conversation between Concetta and her great-granddaughter, Gioia. Do you find family trees to be helpful when books span generations such as this one does? Is Concetta's family tree particularly helpful or unhelpful due to the way that it is introduced through dialogue?

2. Each chapter of the novel begins with an Italian verse. Do you feel that these verses introduce each chapter well? Why or why not?

3. The author often uses food as a metaphor: Everything would begin to rise like bread dough under a kitchen towel (p. 8); her body small and round, shapely and dark as a grape (p. 19); Unlike her sisterwho was lil$