When the gynecologist learned the baby was due around New Year’s, he warned he might not be there. “Only the poor and uneducated have babies in August or over Christmas. The rich plan better,” he said. My Milan in-laws were unconcerned. Like good Milan families, we would certainly have our child at the Mangiagalli hospital in the care of “La Baldini.” Unless anything went wrong, … Continue reading Woman Becomes Maus

How do you make a film about rape? Tough. How about mass rape? Even tougher. Yet German director Max Färberbök approaches the subject with great deftness. His raw but tender “A Woman in Berlin” reconstructs the anonymous diary of a journalist who lived through the the 1945 Battle of Berlin, which eventually saw the advancing Soviet Red Army occupy the city. The diary’s contents so … Continue reading Anonyma: Eine Frau in Berlin (A Woman in Berlin)

Hospitals were the backdrop of my childhood. Dad was a doctor, the old fashioned kind; the kind for whom it was a vocation and a passion, long before the words were debased by overuse. Dad’s idea of vacation fun was volunteering in hospitals, reconstructing leprosy patients in India or operating on civilians in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in 1968. When we traveled, Dad escaped … Continue reading Acquiescence

Whenever I tell people I live in Milan, they always ask “Don’t you just love it?” Obviously they have slotted me into one of the stock — happy — pictures of living in Italy. When I hesitate — as I always do — they quickly slot me into another stock picture of Italy, the malcontent abroad. It’s complicated. The reality is somewhere between the dream … Continue reading Day in the Life

A few weeks ago I took a morning walk with my dog around the lake in New Hampshire where I have a house. I heard the water lapping against rocks on the lake’s shore. Warm pines scented the air. I was suddenly transported back to Wisconsin’s North Woods of decades ago where I saw myself in my bed at the resort Boathouse — known as … Continue reading Vatican II

I recently saw Federico Fellini’s “Prova d’Orchestra” for the first time since 1986. The director, who died in 1993, had a knack for cutting to the heart of Italy’s past and present. But seeing this “minor” film against the backdrop of current events suggests he was also clairvoyant. “Prova d’Orchestra” (“Orchestra Rehearsal) is a “mockumentary” about a television crew filming a classical rehearsal, talking to … Continue reading Prova del Futuro

It’s been a busy week in Milan, including old boyfriends, domestic intrigue, and sick children. But the biggest hit to my well-ordered life was a bomb dropped by a friend, with whom I brought up children and shared a ski-house in Cortina for close to two decades. Over lunch she revealed that she was having an affair with a high school crush and her husband … Continue reading Content Mom

Faithful readers, and I know some of you are out there, are familiar with my penchant for American self-help books. Over the years, and with varying degrees of success, they have provided over-the-counter cures for my hopelessness with Excel and Photoshop, encounters with difficult people, sassy children and dogs, my lack of self-confidence, and a go-nowhere novel. Over-the-counter cures can have surprising if unintended uses, … Continue reading The National Mind

Whenever I tell people I live in Milan, they immediately gush about how well they ate while visiting Italy. They had the most amazing pasta! They had the meal of a lifetime in a trattoria or in a restaurant with a Michelin star! The tomatoes were incredible! It’s foodie heaven! How wonderful to eat like that every day! Italy is blessed with food advantages, including … Continue reading On Food

Marco Tullio Giordana’s film helps explain why Italians remain mesmerized by far-fetched conspiracy theories. On Dec. 12, 1969, the Milan headquarters of the Banca Nazionale d’Agricoltura was bombed, leaving 17 dead and 88 injured. The incident embedded itself so deeply into the Italian national consciousness that it became know simply as “Piazza Fontana.” Director Giordana, a veteran of probing the murky depths of contemporary Italian … Continue reading Romanzo di una Strage