Angela Petch 
Books in my Handbag is delighted to welcome the inspirational Angela Petch to the Chat Room
‘I’m inquisitive about different cultures and people. Writers are usually nosy, I think.’
Angela Petch was born in Germany, brought up in Italy and England, worked in Amsterdam, Sicily and Tanzania, East Africa. It is no wonder that she is ‘inquisitive about people and culture’. We can also thank Angela’s late father for introducing her to Italy, and I feel certain that he would have been proud of her writing. Her colourful life is reflected in her colourful writing pallet. Angela is sensitive, funny and creative: the perfect qualities for a writer
Angela has published ‘Tuscan Roots
Always full of joie de vivre, Angela insisted that we open a bottle of Prosecco before we commenced the chat. The sun was shining and butterflies dancing in the Italian garden as we commenced the conversation.
Jessie: I adore ‘Now and Then in Tuscany
The saga of three generations of a Tuscan family which recalls recent hardships and traditions of country life, too easily forgotten in today’s affluent and comfortable Europe.
Jessie: Absolutely, these elements were beautifully presented in the novel. Now here’s another challenge, read me an extract that captures the essence of your book.
Angela: “The ancient wheel beside the convent door stood waiting … like the mouth of a hungry beast, ready for me to place the baby in its wooden drum and push it to the inside of the orphanage.”
Jessie: You paint the experiences and emotions with words and tell a heart-breaking yet beautiful story. What do the reviewers say about your 5* novel?
Angela searched through the Amazon reviews while I ate crostini.
Angela:
This is no disappointment! What-happened-next books are so often disappointing. After the enchanting ‘Tuscan Roots
Reviewer: Perdisma on 13 May 2017
Fascinating people and places. It reminds me in many ways (though it’s much less relentlessly tragic!) of “The Tree of Wooden Clogs”, the prize-winning film by Ermanno Olmi – it has the same intensely imagined and exquisitely detailed recreation of a lost way of life. The photographs are part of this too – at first sight they’re just grainy little black and white images, but each one explains and is explained by the text, so that the more you read the more alive they seem, like Facebook pages from a hundred years ago.
Reviewer: Rose on Amazon 11 May 2017
Beautifully written and researched. This is a beautifully written and researched family saga that spans three generations of an Italian family. Giuseppe comes from a poor village in Tuscany where the rhythm of life is set by the Catholic Church and the menfolk’s annual winter pilgrimage to warmer winter grazing land for the sheep… The book is full of a subtle yearning. The prose is evocative. The historical narrative is impressively authentic and riven with the author’s love of her subject.
By CA reviews on 7 May 2017
Jessie: I am not surprised that you have received such accolades that all are all genuinely inspired by your storytelling. The book has been a labour of love so how did you feel when you had finished the book?
Angela: I felt a mixture of relief and sadness when I had finished writing the book. This book took me five years to research and write. At times, it was an agonising process. I struggled with the balance between history and narrative, fearing that my desire to include details about the era was pushing the plot out of shape. At first, I listened to the reactions of too many Beta readers and grew despondent and confused. But I wanted desperately to give birth to “Now and Then in Tuscany”, as I felt it was a period of history that needed to be recorded. I had help from a professional editor in the end.
Jessie: It is so reassuring to hear that such a great book is the result of a challenging journey. Do you miss the characters?
Angela: I still miss my main character, Giuseppe. He is so firmly placed in the location where we live in Tuscany that I’m sure I catch glimpses of him every now and again as he strides along the mule track.
Two weeks ago, we ate in the old stone house that I had imagined was his. I’m sure he was sitting in a corner by the stove, listening to our conversation and smiling wryly at the way we enjoyed the meal so much: our friend had recreated a peasant’s meal of nettle soup and frittata prepared with the tips of Vitalba (Old Man’s Beard). We enjoyed it as if it were a delicacy. But he would have eaten these ingredients out of necessity.
Jessie: Would you like any of your characters to read the book, or maybe there is someone else that you have in mind?
Angela: My father, Kenneth Sutor, who died twenty six years ago. He introduced his three young children to Italian culture in the 1960’s, when he relocated to Rome to work for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. I still have his 1956 edition of Hachette’s World Guide to Italy that he carried in his pocket for our excursions. Every Sunday he would take us to Mass and afterwards treat the family to a slap-up meal in a simple trattoria. Then, out would come his little blue book and we would be guided round the Villa d’Este or the Via Appia Antica, Colosseum, Subiaco, Assisi…He refused to have us penned up in an apartment in the centre of Rome and found us a ramshackle villa on the outskirts of Rome. The garden was stuffed with Roman statues, orange trees and bordered by vineyards and peach groves. How could I, as an impressionable seven year old, fail to fall in love with Italy? He was self-educated. Today he would have enjoyed a university education but his family were not wealthy enough to support him. I remember him often engrossed in a history book, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose.
Jessie: I know you can’t say, but I wonder if I can sense your father in Giuseppe… I am sure that your father would have been so proud of your book.
Angela: I would have loved to see him read my books. Undoubtedly, he would have pointed out the warts but I think he might have been proud of me too. He loved Italy and, on my mother’s request, I scattered his ashes on Italian soil.
Jessie: I don’t need to be convinced but why should I keep your book in my handbag?
Angela: If you are the type of person who recognises that understanding the past helps towards an understanding of the future…
If you want to explore a beautiful and little-known corner of Eastern Tuscany…
If you want to read the story of a young boy with a big heart who overcomes adversity…
If you want to weep and smile at Tuscan love stories…
Then, find a space in your handbag for “Now and Then in Tuscany”.
Jessie: What is the last sentence written in your writer’s notebook?
Angela poured herself another glass of Prosecco and wiped the condensation from the glass. There was a distinct look of mischief in Angela’s eyes as she read the following line:
“…a fluttering of fans from menopausal worshippers, in a church smelling of candle wax and cold, cold stone…”
(For an idea for my WIP, “The Adventures of Mavis and Dot”).
Jessie: What is the biggest challenge for an independent author?
Angela: Getting noticed. To be read in a competitive world where thousands of self-published authors are jostling for space. Engaging with social media has been my biggest challenge but it is the springboard. For a child of the ‘50’s, it doesn’t come easy. I was advised to set up a Twitter account. “Look for like-minded people,” was the advice from a writer friend. So, I typed “Lovers of Italian” in the search bar. I shall leave it to your imagination about the photos of gigolos and semi-naked escorts that popped up. Learning curve is the phrase that is constantly on the tip of my independent author’s tongue.
Jessie: What is the best advice that you have received as a writer?
Angela: Just write. Get it down, capture your words before they fly away.
Afterwards you will have to check and chop, but just write first. In order to have something to work on, just write. I don’t believe in writer’s block.
Jessie: I agree with you! Just let the writing flow and banish writer’s block. Does the countryside inspire you to write more than the city environment?
Angela: I like cities in small doses – for the theatre, concerts, art galleries, museums and monuments – but my heart sings in the countryside. I have played tennis all my life but at the moment I need a shoulder operation, so I can’t. Instead, I go for wonderful walks in the mountains. Better than a sweaty gym, any day.
Following the interview, I meandered down an ancient track. I reflected that we are all influenced by the past and the present. And I pondered whether anyone would make a wonderful art house film of Now and Then in Tuscany – the setting is there waiting to be captured on film.
Please see My Guests for all the authors that I have interviewed.
Tuscan Roots
I stopped at the mill ‘hidden in the folds of the Alps of the Moon, where the sun sets from the jewel red skies behind misted blue peaks.’ Anna’s mother once lived in a mill, and she explains ‘…the old building in ruins, crumbling into nothing seems to mirror what I am leaning of Mamma’s past.’ The Mill is ‘fragile’ and is a symbol of lost history and lost dreams that could be rekindled by the new generation. Sitting on the steps to read the letters and diaries, I sensed the ‘breeze that dances on the river’. Listening to the ‘sound of the river and distant sheep bells’, I could feel the loneliness of Ines. I am sure I heard the voices of the German soldiers who would have bathed there, and the whispers of the POWs and partisans hidden in the mountains.
I was completely spellbound by the characters and the clever structure of this novel. ‘
This novel evokes the senses and leaves the reader firmly fixed in Tuscany. Not the tourist’s Italy, but rural, down to earth Italy – ‘this landscape feels lived in’, and the author breathes life into ‘the ghosts from the past’. The story of the POW and partisans provide another dimension to this story, and I was impressed with how this was skilfully woven into the story.
Angela Petch is an author of historical fiction, and she has written two wonderful novels set in Tuscany. I completely lost myself in both novels. ‘
The ebooks of ‘
Cari lettori (Dear Readers),
The inglese was still asleep on the planks above the cows. The nights were chilly and the animal warmth and dry hay made a comfortable bedroom – much better than mine. I have to share with nonna and she kicks and tosses at night. She snores like the pig we used to fatten for Christmas. There have been no pigs this year. The Germans have ‘requisitioned’ ours and everybody else’s in the area. ‘Pigs eating pigs,’ we muttered amongst ourselves.
‘
Giuseppe’s grandson, Francesco, and his English wife transform the ancient houses into holiday lets. Their son, Davide, encounters some of the emotional challenges of childhood that Giuseppe, his great-grandfather, had to face.