History Corner/ Book Review: You Fascinating You by Germaine Shames

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from the author,via Pale Fire Press, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it

Synopsis: In the final weeks of 1938, in the shadow of Kristallnacht and imminent war, a heartsick Italian maestro wrote a love song called "Tu Solamente Tu." Its lyrics lamented his forced separation from his wife, the Hungarian ballerina Margit Wolf, in the wake of Mussolini's edict banishing foreign Jews from Italy. The song, first recorded by Vittorio de Sica in 1939, catapulted to the top of the Hit Parade and earned its composer the moniker "the Italian Cole Porter." The German version, "Du Immer Wieder Du," would be performed by Zarah Leander, the foremost film star of the German Reich, and its English counterpart, "You, Fascinating You," by the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band. Twenty-two years would pass before the maestro and his ballerina again met face-to-face. You, Fascinating You begins as a backstage romance and ends as an epic triumph of the human spirit. Editor's Choice, Historical Novel Society: "FAULTLESS."

Notes from the Author:

To tell all the stories that transit my imagination, I would need a hundred lifetimes. My novels have each taken years to complete. You, Fascinating You has consumed fully one-tenth of my life. Its seed was planted more than twenty years ago, when I first met Cesare Frustaci.
Reflecting later upon that meeting, I identified Cesare's defining feature: regardless of where he made his home he was unplaceable. He spoke with an accent, not Hungarian exactly, but not Italian either. Unlike his fellow émigrés, he had no wistful memories of Hungary, no desire to return.

I remember sharing a meal with him in a restaurant. There was something about the way he ate I had never before observed: although his table manners could not have been more refined, he appeared to be starving. Immediately upon finishing a course, he would signal the waitress and order a second helping--only to cancel the order moments later.

As we got to know each other, details of his childhood began to emerge--the malnutrition he suffered during World War II, the "shoes" he fashioned for himself from horses' feedbags, the corpses alongside which he would awaken each morning... He seemed to be describing the perils of an orphaned waif abandoned to his fate, yet he was the son of Pasquale Frustaci (aka "the Italian Cole Porter"), a composer and conductor whose star, while the war cast Europe into darkness, had never shone brighter. How then, from the age of seven, did Cesare end up alone on the battlefronts of provincial Hungary in the midst of the worst carnage the world has known?

The answer would arrive in my mailbox fifteen years later: a videotaped oral history Cesare contributed to Yale University. It told the story of his mother Margit Wolf, a Jewish ballerina who fell in love with a dashing Italian maestro and bore him a son--a ballerina who inspired a timeless love song only to fade from history without a trace. I sat riveted, as if hearing the libretto of a classic ballet or opera, but this was memory--the memory of a hungry boy searching for his parents.

Why this story? 
Because it gripped my heart and would not let go. Because I lay awake nights thinking of Margit Wolf and hearing "You, Fascinating You" broadcast through my pillow. Because this is what great stories do: make us care.


You can download an excerpt on the publisher's page!

Review:  This book is based on actual European history and people, which made it perfect for today's History Corner segment! It is very obvious from reading the book that the author did extensive research before making the book (in fact she compiled research over five years), as you feel like you are truly stepping back in time while reading the book. She brings to light all the politically and historically factual horrors from the time of Mussolini in Italy, through the reign of Hitler and on to the recovery of the region after the war. You find yourself rooting for Margit and hoping she will get back on the ballet stage, though you know the odds are NOT good for that to happen. While it is a love story, I found myself wanting to yell and scream at Margit for her unfailing love for her husband (the Italian composer Pasquale Frustaci), who refused to help her and their son escape from Nazis occupied Hungary, and instead lived the high life as the 'composer of the moment'. Margit is the true heroine, and so much MORE than the woman behind the famous song! I found myself glued to the afterwards, written by their son Cesare, and sad that so much was lost, when the web of lies begun before his birth. in the end I didn't see the book as so much of a love story, but a tragedy and one that is well worth reading! 


About the Author: Germaine Shames has written from six continents--soon to add the seventh--on topics ranging from the Middle East crisis to Aboriginal land rights, from the struggle to save the Amazon to the plight of street children. Shames is author of the critically-acclaimed novel Between Two Deserts (Macadam/Cage Publishing), two earlier nonfiction books, a musical stage play, and three feature screenplays. 

Shames holds a masters degree in Intercultural Studies. As a global executive, and later as a foreign correspondent, she has lived and worked in such diverse locations as the Australian outback, Swiss Alps, interior of Bulgaria, coast of Colombia, Fiji Islands, and Gaza Strip.







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