My new novel, The Stolen Child, spans sixty years and three countries. During WWI, an American soldier, Nick Burns, is in a trench on a farm in France. To pass the time, he draws a mural of his life back home. Unbeknownst to him, the pregnant farmer’s wife is also an artist with aspirations of leaving for Paris. In Naples, Italy, in 1935, a presepe—Nativity—artisan stumbles upon a woman crying in a park. Not knowing how to comfort her, he offers to collect her tears and save them. Thus begins The Museum of Tears, a small nook in the back of his shop where all the tears he collects throughout the years are displayed. Jenny, a college dropout with big dreams is working at an IHop in 1973 when she sees an ad that Nick has placed for someone to travel with him and help unravel the mystery of what happened as a result of a decision he made all those years ago on that farm. The fates of these three characters are intertwined in surprising ways.
Music runs throughout The Stolen Child as singers like Mario Lanza and Caruso appear, as does a young, unknown Sophia Loren. The music of the early 1970s creates a backdrop for Jenny’s life as she struggles to find where she belongs. Settings in Italy, France, and Ireland bring to mind the music of those countries too. There is so much rich atmosphere in the novel that I think this playlist could be a hundred songs long. Alas, I will show restraint and offer the very best songs for The Stolen Child playlist.
“Che la Luna Mezzo Mare “ by Louis Prima and Keely Smith
Also known as “Lazy Mary,” this is a traditional Italian song written in 1927. The opening chapter of my novel is in Naples, Italy in 1935 when Enzo finds the crying woman and this song really establishes this setting. You’ve probably heard it if you’ve been to any Italian weddings, or if you’ve seen The Godfather where Mamma Corleone and an old Italian man sing it at Connie’s wedding. But to me, this song represents every holiday with my own Italian American family. Led by my cousin Chippy, we sing it together loudly after dinner.
“Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag” by The Andrews Sisters, with Dick Haymes
It was hard to choose just one World War I song. Torn between “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag,” “Over There,” and “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” I finally landed on this one, partially because Dick Haymes and The Andrew Sisters’ rendition of it is so full of pizzazz. But also, it fit Nick’s character in a few ways. The decision he made in that war led to a troubled life for him, and I liked the idea that upon returning to France, he was “packing up his troubles.” When Haymes croons, “Hey, Mr. Gloomy Gus,” I feel like he’s singing right to Nick. And The way The Andrews Sisters sing, “What? What’s the use of worrying? It never was worthwhile,” makes me think that even Nick will “smile, smile, smile.”
“She’s a Lady” by John Sebastian
You most likely know John Sebastian from the ’60s group The Lovin’ Spoonful. But he also had a solo career, and this song is one he recorded on his own. Not to be confused with the Tom Jones song of the same title, John Sebastian’s “She’s a Lady” is a beautiful love song and emblematic of when it was written—1969. “Oh, lady, lady of ladies,” he sings, “I remember days that felt like, It was raining daisies. When Jenny begins college, she and her roommate Vera discover they were at the same John Sebastian concert the summer before, a concert where he sang this song. How am I so sure he sang it that summer? Because I was at that concert too.
“The Dangling Conversation” by Simon and Garfunkel
Jenny gets pregnant with her high school boyfriend right before college starts and has to drop out of school and give the baby up for adoption. She knew Russ was all wrong for her, and she dreams of a relationship in which, as the song says, “You read your Emily Dickenson, and I my Robert Frost…” In other words, a relationship with someone poetic and romantic, with big dreams like she has. As a teenager, I played “The Dangling Conversation” over and over on my record player, imagining someone just like Jenny does.
“Funiculi’ Funiculà” by Sophia Loren
Before she became an Academy Award winning actress, Sophia Loren worked in her grandmother’s bar in a town called Pozzuoli, outside of Naples, after WWII. She served homemade cherry liqueur and sang by the piano. She was known as Sofia Lazzaro then because it was said her beauty could raise Lazarus from the dead. Enzo goes to the bar with his brother Massimo and hears the beautiful young woman sing Italian songs, like “Funiculi’ Funiclà” and American songs learned from the GIs. Five years later, Enzo runs into her again after she has been crowned Miss Elegance in the Miss Italia beauty contest. He collects her tears and they go into the museum as: MISS ELEGANCE 1950. TEARS OF HAPPINESS.
“Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” by Edith Piaf
Jenny and Nick’s first stop on there way to unravel the mystery of what happened in the war is Paris. Jenny has never traveled anywhere before and falls immediately in love with the city. I tried to capture my own wonder and awe when I first saw Paris when I wrote about Jenny in this chapter. For her, this trip is a way to start over and to let go of all her regrets—the pregnancy, dropping out of college, giving the baby up for adoption. When Piaf sings, “My sorrows, my pleasures, I do not need them anymore…I go back to zero…” she could be telling Jenny’s story at the moment.
“Arrivederci Roma” by Renato Rascel
In 1957, Enzo joined the crowd of Neapolitans who greeted Mario Lanza’s ship when he arrived to give a concert. Lanza was accompanied by the Italian actor-comedian Renato Rascel, who was known as il picoletto nazionale because of his diminutive size. Lanza and his entourage went for lunch at the waterfront restaurant the Internazionale and the crowd followed them, hoping for just a glimpse of the singer. But it was Renato Rascel’s voice singing “Arrivederci Roma” that floated out to them. “Arrivederci Roma, goodbye, goodbye to Rome…” he sang so beautifully that it is said the crowd began to weep.
“Come Back to Sorrento” by Dean Martin
Enzo’s niece was chosen to dance in the tarantella competition in Sorrento in 1959. The tarantella imitates the efforts of Neapolitans curing themselves of the bites of venomous tarantulas. They believe only music and dance can neutralize the spider’s venom. The dancers wore traditional costumes, and the handsomest couple were voted king and queen. Sofia wins, and Enzo understands that this victory is her first step in leaving not just home, but Italy. “Smiling leave I saw you taking…And I felt my heart was breaking. Oh, how could you go away?”
“The Saddest Poem/Number 20” by Ute Lemper
Before Jenny leaves for Europe, she meets Daniel, a PhD student writing his dissertation on Pablo Neruda. They make a promise to meet again in Capri, where he will be researching at Neruda’s house. Ute Lemper composed a song cycle of Neruda’s love poems, Forever, as an homage to him. I could have chosen any of the poems that Lemper has put music to, but this one seems especially fitting. Due to a mishap, Jenny and Daniel do not meet at the appointed time. Neruda wrote: “I can write the saddest poem tonight. To think I don’t have her. To feel that I’ve lost her…”
“Dirty Old Town” by The Pogues
Well, this song is anachronistic since Enzo falls in love with Geraldine, an Irish travel writer from Dublin, in 1970 and The Pogues didn’t record “Dirty Old Town” until 1985. But I love this song! And it always makes me think of the lovely times I’ve had in Ireland, even though it’s about Salford in Lancashire, England. For many summers, I’ve had the privilege of teaching in Dingle, Ireland, and many a night finds me singing loud in pubs, singing this song perhaps loudest of all. I’m sure when Geraldine heard it fifteen years after she met Enzo, she sang it loud too.
“Isle of Capri” by Frank Sinatra
No spoilers here! But Jenny returns to Capri to search for Daniel. “Summertime was nearly over, Blue Italian sky above,” Sinatra sings. “Can you spare a fine word o’ love?” Writing this book was like doing a big jigsaw puzzle as I worked to make all the storylines fit together. One of them concerns what happens on the Isle of Capri, and I think I will leave it at that.
“Santa Lucia” by Enrico Caruso
If ever there was a perfect final song for The Stolen Child playlist, it is “Santa Lucia” by Caruso, one of the greatest tenors ever and a Neapolitan. Enzo worries over how to paint Santa Lucia’s eyes, which were ripped out by guards, on a platter so that they look like eyes and not fried eggs. Massimo and Enzo debate if Mario Lanza’s voice is even close to Caruso’s. As a child, Enzo sees Caruso’s funeral procession. “Santa Lucia” is perhaps the most traditional Neapolitan song. “O dolce Napoli, o suol beato, Ove sorridere volle il creato.” “Oh sweet Naples, oh blessed land, Where creation wanted to smile…” The mystery that brought Jenny and Nick to Europe is solved in Naples, so Caruso must sing the finale.
Ann Hood’s playlist for her anthology Providence Noir
Ann Hood’s playlist for her novel The Red Thread