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The fictional village of Santa Chionia, the setting of Juliet Grames’s novel “The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia, is nestled in the mountainous Aspromonte region of southern Italy, the “toe” of Italy’s boot.
Into this village steps Francesca Loftfield, an idealistic young Philadelphia native tasked with opening a nursery school in hopes of improving the lives of its children. Santa Chionia has no electricity, no running water, and no school. Its inhabitants speak Greco, an amalgam of Italian and ancient Greek. It is this arcane language, as well as the village’s remote location, that insulates it from the outside world.
In their isolation and fierce interdependence the Chionti, as they called themselves, have developed a complex interlocking family and social network, complete with customs and rigidly enforced rules of conduct.
After a flood destroys the post office, a skeleton is discovered in the remains of its foundation. Learning of this, Loftfield is astounded to learn that little effort has been made to discover its identity. Further inquiry leads her to discover that not one, but three young men have disappeared from the village, leaving no clues to their whereabouts. As she gets to know the people of the village she is approached by relatives of all three of the missing men, entreating her to learn of their fates.
The book’s first three sections detail Loftfield’s investigations into the three missing men. In the process she uncovers ever more closely held secrets of the village and the surrounding region. Each investigation introduces the extensive cast of characters making up the membership of the community.
We learn that early in Loftfield’s time in Italy she fell into a relationship with a Roman man, to whom she is married but has not seen in more than two years. She also falls under the spell of a breathtakingly handsome shepherd who now works in Milan but returns to Santa Chionia frequently to care for his mother.
Grames’s novel is in part mystery, in part romance, and in part an account of a young woman of privilege’s attempt to find meaning in her life.
For readers who find the large number of characters overwhelming, the author has provided an annotated list of major figures appearing in the narrative. And although the story is liberally sprinkled with Italian and Greco words, the context makes it easy to understand their meaning.
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