I read this book in English, but I was caught by its Italian cover, during one of my trips to a bookshop, looking for inspiration and new reads. I do that sometimes: I just enter a bookshop with no intention to leave with a new purchase, but just to note down titles that inspire me for my reading list. I usually prefer finishing what I already have before buying new books.
I was fascinated by its cover, with smooth colours that reminded me of Edward Hopper and a country atmosphere. A couple standing in front of a truck, a rifle in the man’s hands and his prey on the car’s ceiling. I’m realizing that I’m just becoming aware of what the cover is representing at this very moment when I’m writing. I think what mainly attracted me was the American West vibes and the soft colours that made me think of summer and peace, in contrast with the actually violent scene represented.
Just before the 2016 presidential elections Owen moves back to his hometown near Louisville, Kentucky, after a few years of alcoholism and excessive drug consumption, wandering around the States. He doesn’t really have a place he calls home, nor enough money to buy or rent one, so he crashes at his grandpa’s basement, together with his Republican and antisocial uncle.
Owen, an aspiring writer who nevertheless lacks a proper clarity about what he wants to write about, finds a job as a groundskeeper (hence the title) at Ashby College. There, he meets Alma, originally from an emigrated family from Bosnia, but now an upper-class girl who has already written a couple of books and is working at the university as a writer-in-residence.
The two meet, gravitate around each other for a while, before starting a relationship and falling in love. Or, better said, trying to love each other. (We’ll see this aspect better).
The story is mainly about this, a simple plot, but with many themes I’m interested in and I think are typical of my generation.
Modern love
Owen and Alma’s relationship is definitely the core of this book. The two have had a bond since the first time they met. They have an attraction for each other, despite their class and education difference, and start a relationship. But there’s always something holding them back, and preventing their love from actually taking off.
Although I didn’t particularly like them as characters – Owen for his complete lack of action and a sort of self-complacency for his bad-boy past; Alma for her arrogance, her love for her ideas more than for others and her excessive individualism – I couldn’t help but feeling sympathy for them and their love story.
I think the author did a great job at representing a realistic depiction of modern relationships, where feelings for others often come after individualism and theories, where love is never strong enough to bring a powerful transformation in the people involved. At the end of it, they’re still two individuals who prefer to pursue their “dreams” (but there are no dreams without real love for life and others) alone rather than risk losing themselves to someone else.
Many of us will find a correspondence with Owen and Alma’s story. Silences, miscommunication, arguments more based on questions of principle than to a will to grow together, an ultimate incapacity to meet the other with their unique contradictions and humanity, instead of seeing them as a projection of our own ideals and boxes to check.
The feeling I got overall with their relationship is the same I had in several of my millenial/ gen Z relationships: What a pity! Why don’t they try more? Why don’t they jump in it? Why don’t they drop their guard and let themselves go?
A confusing feeling incapable of understanding if I have missed a special connection or just imagined a love that didn’t exist in the first place.
Owen’s words, when they say goodbye, perfectly describe this feeling:
“I wanted us to have a story, to be like those lovers in novels, who meet in a time of conflict, who fight to be together and are carried away by the sweep of history. But there was nothing grand about us. We were just two little people who’d tried to love each other in the middle of a mess. Now that was ending. No fanfare. No big to-do.”
Another character, Bonnie, Owen’s stepmother, maybe because she’s from another generation, or more simply because she’s terminally ill and has therefore a clarity we lack when we have the illusion of having a lot of time ahead, says:
“Love is simple, […] People try to make it complicated, but it’s very simple. You’ll realize that when you’re dying.”
Writing vs manual labor. The role of writing
Both characters write. And find themselves through writing. Alma is a writer and writes about her experience as an immigrant (although a privileged one). Owen doesn’t know what to write about, but he knows he wants to be a writer. Writing gives them a sense of identity they wouldn’t have otherwise. Besides, I often feel they both enjoy more speaking about writing and calling themselves writers, instead of actually writing.
Writing can give a sense of purpose and belonging when you write because you have something to say, but it can also give you the illusion of being someone because writing is something cool, even when you don’t have much to say. I’m unsure about whether Owen and Alma have found their true voice yet.
For Owen, writing is also about having a social status, in comparison to the job as a groundskeeper. Hands in the dirt -this is the italian title (Mani nella terra)- is what actually gives him a salary and some real human interaction with his colleagues.
Alma is already someone because she writes, but for most of the book we see her struggling with it, being scared of having run out of words, fearing of exposing herself and of being represented by someone else. When Owen writes about her, she’s furious. For sure he’s a bit superficial with it, but what struck me was her terror of being actually seen by someone.
A search for home
I’ve always had the same predicament. When I’m home, in Kentucky, all I want is to leave. When I’m away, I’m homesick for a place that never was.
And here we come to my dear topic and probably the reason why I was attracted to this book: the search for home, especially in American Literature.
Feeling at home for some people is an actual quest. Something you look for in people, places, actions and, in this case, writing.
In this book, home is not a place, but a longing. Owen didn’t grow up feeling at home, so he roams around the country and tries to escape from himself through alcohol and drugs, only to finally go back to his hometown and his roots, without really finding the belonging he was looking for. But you can’t feel at home anywhere, before you’ve allowed yourself to be your home.
“I didn’t live in Pop’s house. I didn’t live here either. There were only temporary shelters and they always had been. I wondered when, in my life, I’d be entitled to call a place my own.”
Alma has a loving family and solid roots, but as an immigrant it’s hard to belong in a new country and she’s still looking for something more stable and solid, for a stronger identity to finally feel like she has the right to belong.
Stability, exploration, home. This is a question I have myself when it comes to feeling like I belong. But, ultimately, it feels a bit like the chicken or egg dilemma: who came first?
I guess you’d have to decide to settle somewhere, before you had kids. Maybe you’ve got it backwards though, she said. Maybe you settle down because you have kids, not in order to have them.
They could have belonged together, but eventually they’d rather pursue their quest alone, which is definitely harder.
It took me a long time to finish this book and a long time to write a review after finishing it. I loved it because it resonated with many things that matter in my life and it’s set in a place where I’ve recently been. I loved this story even if I didn’t love the characters, and maybe because of it. For some reason I thought of these characters as if they were two living people and got mad at them for being so stupid as if they were friends of mine. But, in the end, I can’t help but feel some compassion and affection for them, because I can see their struggles.
My rating: 8
