Review: Saving Francesca, by Melina Marchetta

[Russ Allbery]

Saving Francesca
by Melina Marchetta

Series:    Francesca #1
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Copyright: 2003
Printing:  2011
ISBN:      0-307-43371-4
Format:    Kindle
Pages:     245

Francesca is in Year Eleven in St. Sebastian's, in the first year that
the school opened to girls. She had a social network and a comfortable
place at her previous school, but it only went to Year Ten. Most of her
friends went to Pius, but St. Sebastian's is a better school. So
Francesca is there, one of thirty girls surrounded by boys who aren't
used to being in a co-ed school, and mostly hanging out with the three
other girls who had gone to her previous school. She's miserable, out
of place, and homesick for her previous routine.

And then, one morning, her mother doesn't get out of bed. Her mother,
the living force of energy, the one who runs the household, who pesters
Francesca incessantly, who starts every day with a motivational song.
She doesn't get out of bed the next day, either. Or the day after that.
And the bottom falls out of Francesca's life.

I come at this book from a weird angle because I read The Piper's Son
first. It's about Tom Mackee, one of the supporting characters in this
book, and is set five years later. I've therefore met these people
before: Francesca, quiet Justine who plays the piano accordion,
political Tara, and several of the Sebastian boys. But they are much
different here as their younger selves: more raw, more childish, and
without the understanding of settled relationships. This is the story
of how they either met or learned how to really see each other, against
the backdrop of Francesca's home life breaking in entirely unexpected
ways.

I think The Piper's Son was classified as young adult mostly because
Marchetta is considered a young adult writer. Saving Francesca, by
comparison, is more fully a young adult novel. Instead of third person
with two tight viewpoints, it's all first person: Francesca telling the
reader about her life. She's grumpy, sad, scared, anxious, and very
self-focused, in the way of a teenager who is trying to sort out who
she is and what she wants. The reader follows her through the
uncertainty of maybe starting to like a boy who may or may not like her
and is maddeningly unwilling to commit, through realizing that the
friends she had and desperately misses perhaps weren't really friends
after all, and into the understanding of what friendship really means
for her. But it's all very much caught up in Francesca's head. The
thoughts of the other characters are mostly guesswork for the reader.

The Piper's Son was more effective for me, but this is still a very
good book. Marchetta captures the gradual realization of friendship,
along with the gradual understanding that you have been a total ass,
extremely well. I was somewhat less convinced by Francesca's mother's
sudden collapse, but depression does things like that, and by the end
of the book one realizes that Francesca has been somewhat oblivious to
tensions and problems that would have made this less surprising. And
the way that Marchetta guides Francesca to a deeper understanding of
her father and the dynamics of her family is emotionally realistic and
satisfying, although Francesca's lack of empathy occasionally makes one
want to have a long talk with her.

The best part of this book are the friendships. I didn't feel the
moments of catharsis as strongly here as in The Piper's Son, but I
greatly appreciated Marchetta's linking of the health of Francesca's
friendships to the health of her self-image. Yes, this is how this
often works: it's very hard to be a good friend until you understand
who you are inside, and how you want to define yourself. Often that
doesn't come in words, but in moments of daring and willingness to get
lost in a moment. The character I felt the most sympathy for was
Siobhan, who caught the brunt of Francesca's defensive self-absorption
in a way that left me wincing even though the book never lingers on
her. And the one who surprised me the most was Jimmy, who possibly
shows the most empathy of anyone in the book in a way that Francesca
didn't know how to recognize.

I'm not unhappy about reading The Piper's Son first, since I don't
think it needs this book (and says some of the same things in a more
adult voice, in ways I found more powerful). I found Saving Francesca a
bit more obvious, a bit less subtle, and a bit more painful, and I
think I prefer reading about the more mature versions of these
characters. But this is a solid, engrossing psychological story with a
good emotional payoff. And, miracle of miracles, even a bit of a
denouement.

Followed by The Piper's Son.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Reviewed: 2017-12-29

-- 
Russ Allbery (eagle at eyrie.org)              <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>