I think I asked about this comic novel a long time ago but got no results. It’s been quite a while, with new folks, so I’m going to try again.
The book took place in “the present” which would have been the mid to late 60’s. It’s told in the first person by a girl in her late teens. She’s an orphan and her grandfather raised her. He seems to be an old fashioned gentleman, and she gets sent off to a school dance in a pretty gown. However, all the other girls are highly made up, wearing short skirts and so on, and she gets a lot of flack.
Her grandfather realizes there are aspects to raising a girl he may be behind on, so he sends her to Italy to the home and family of some high ranking people he knew in his youth. The matriarch of the family is, in particular, a snotty stuck up bitch. The grandfather had said “She can teach you things I can’t.”
Hilarity ensues with the interactions between family members and their acquaintances. The girl, before returning home, realizes that what she had to learn was how to stand up for herself, and maybe be just a bit conniving and sneaky herself.
In the book, at one point, she takes a temp job as a car mechanic, because that’s one “non-feminine” accomplishment she had.
The phrase “brutta figura” is often used, as the matriarch character has a horror of public scandal. And I think the word Rome or Roman may have been part of the title. But no matter how hard I’ve searched I still haven’t found the book.
Can Dopers help this time around?
