Transplanted to Italy
Author in familiar setting for story of romance, grief and organ donation.
Auckland writer Nicky Pellegrino has, quite rightly, a legion of fans, and they know what to expect from each new book: warmth, insight, a cast of engaging characters and a beautiful, evocatively described setting – usually somewhere nice in Italy.
The subject matter of her 12th novel, Tiny Pieces of Us, lends an underlying sadness of tone, but our expectations are more than met. Pellegrino, a Listener columnist, has a great flair for storytelling, so it’s a genuine page-turner, too.
Vivi is a young journalist working for an English tabloid and having a lacklustre affair with Dan, her unscrupulous boss. She’s also the recipient of someone else’s heart, having had a transplant seven years before because of a congenital condition. There are rules enforcing confidentiality about organ donors and recipients, but Dan starts digging and finds out about the donor, a 16-year-old boy called Jamie killed while cycling. Sensing the potential for a story, Dan sends a reluctant Vivi on a mission to track down the recipients of Jamie’s other organs (retinas, liver, kidney, pancreas, lungs).
Jamie’s grieving mother, Grace, contacts the paper when the first instalment of the story appears. She wants to meet with
Vivi “so she can be close to [Jamie] again”. Grace urges Vivi to find all the other organ recipients so she can “look into [Jamie’s] eyes and hear his breath …” Queasily,
Vivi agrees. She successfully tracks down the kidney recipient: Tommy, a divorced,
It’s a little weird when Grace listens to her son’s heart beating in Vivi’s chest with the stethoscope she carries in her handbag.
fitness-obsessed cabinetmaker from Liverpool; and the lung recipient, Fiona, an elegant, reserved older woman with no family who volunteers at the Chelsea Psychic Garden.
In the background, supportive and protective, is Vivi’s sister, Imogen. A stay-at-home mum married to a barrister,
Imogen strives to give her two children the carefree childhood she and her sister lacked because of Vivi’s ill-health. Imogen puts on a permanent happy face for the world, assisted by an ever-present glass of wine.
Gradually, a small group of people connect, linked only by the dead Jamie. A sunny, charmed Italy has featured in all of Pellegrino’s previous novels and she even manages it here, with a group of English donor-organ recipients, by having Imogen arrange a family holiday there and persuading Vivi to invite Tommy and Fiona. In the gorgeous surroundings of the Villa Rosa, itself the star of a number of previous books, emotional and health complications arise.
In less-skilled hands the premise of this book would be creepy. It’s still a little weird, especially when Grace listens to her son’s heart beating in Vivi’s chest with the stethoscope she conveniently carries in her handbag. Pellegrino deals with this by having the characters talk frankly about the weirdness of it all.
They are a totally convincing bunch and the momentum of the book carries you along with them until it no longer seems strange at all.
Vivi’s attempts to trace all the organ recipients for Grace while dealing with her own uncertain future (donated organs often fail) drive much of the story, but there’s romance, too. The cautiously hopeful ending is well-earned. I would have liked more of Fiona and Imogen, but you can’t have everything. There are many pleasures to be found in this absorbing, moving book – count me as a fan.
TINY PIECES OF US, by Nicky Pellegrino