Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Looking for Alibrandi, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family
Identity, Freedom, and Coming of Age
The Immigrant Experience
Gossip and Appearances
Social Status and Wealth
Love and Relationships
Summary
Analysis
After a week, Josie realizes she’s not angry at Nonna anymore. She thinks it’s funny, because she’s spent all of high school concerned about what people are saying about her. But now, she’s starting to doubt that anyone actually cares much about what she does. Mama and Michael don’t seem to care what other people think, and Nonna has no right to care. Jacob loves Josie for who she is, as does John, and Lee and Anna are good friends. Josie figures that all the important people love her no matter what, so it’s not worth caring about the gossips.
Somehow, knowing that Nonna had an affair and conceived a baby through that affair makes Josie realize that what other people say about her isn’t the most important thing. Instead, it’s far more important to pay attention to how she comes across to her friends and family—and they all love and support her. By making this connection, Josie frees herself from having to care so much about what other people think.
Themes
However, Josie is still a bit angry with Nonna. She’s angry that Nonna lived a lie and couldn’t have a relationship with Mama because of that. Nonna’s made herself out to be the victim her whole life—but really, Mama is the victim. Josie realizes how she really feels suddenly one afternoon, as she, Anna, Lee, and Sera wait for a bus. Sera quips that Michael’s job is “respectable”; people would talk if he was “just a laborer.” Josie says her community wouldn’t care and tells her friends to go on without her. She walks toward the city, crying—but she cries because she’s starting to feel free.
Josie’s anger stems from the fact that she sees how Nonna’s affair has affected everyone in the family, Mama most of all. Though Nonna has made everything about her for years, Josie doesn’t think Nonna has any right to do so when her actions made life so miserable for Mama. Then, Josie’s decision to abandon her friends shows her becoming more independent and more of a leader, as Sister Louise encouraged her to be after the walkathon—something Josie associates with growing up.
Themes
Josie takes a bus to Nonna’s place. On the ride, she realizes it’s silly to think that old people aren’t passionate and sexual—one day, Josie’s grandkids will be disgusted that she had sex as a young person. When she gets to Nonna’s house and Nonna answers, Josie hugs her. In the living room, Josie asks Nonna why she slept with Marcus Sandford. Nonna explains that she was young and beautiful, but Nonno treated her like a farm animal. Marcus made her feel special.
It's another mark of Josie’s growing maturity that she can understand that Nonna was once a young, beautiful, sexual woman. It makes Nonna more relatable to Josie, especially since it makes it clear that Josie isn’t the only one in her family who has made the “wrong” decision before.
Themes
Josie sobs again and, when she regains her composure, asks what happened. Nonna says that Marcus visited and brought a letter. She’d already asked him not to visit, but Marcus touched her face and offered to take Nonna away from her horrible life. Josie notices how anguished Nonna looks recounting this story. Nonna says she pushed Marcus away, but then she stopped fighting. She realized that she wasn’t fighting him—she was fighting herself. It didn’t seem worth it to keep fighting her desires when Nonno was never going to make her happy.
Nonna tries to convey to Josie that when she chose to sleep with Marcus, she was choosing to let herself be happy. This in and of itself offers damning insight into how unhappy Nonna was in her marriage with Nonno—and how powerless she felt to change anything about her marriage. Her choice to sleep with him also suggests that Nonna wasn’t as concerned about attracting gossip as a young woman as she is in her old age.
Themes
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Nonna looks away. With tears in her eyes, she says that Marcus treated her carefully and gently. He loved her—and Nonna says she was enraged because after the first time, she realized how poorly Nonno treated her in bed. They spent two months together, and Marcus begged her to leave Nonno. But Nonna says she couldn’t. She was Italian and couldn’t disgrace her family—and people were already talking. So she stayed with Nonno. Josie doesn’t understand why Nonna didn’t leave Nonno. Nonna says it was different back then. Today, you can get a divorce for anything. Back then, though, marriage was for life, no matter what happened.
The threat of gossip might not have been as frightening when Nonna embarked on her affair with Marcus, but by the end of their two months, Nonna seems to have decided the gossip was something she needed to pay attention to. The simple fact that Nonna nevertheless chose to sleep with Marcus, though, suggests that the gossip mill might not be as good at policing people’s conduct as Josie thinks—it didn’t change Nonna’s behavior. Rather, it just reminded her that as an Italian woman, she had responsibilities and couldn’t run from them forever.
Themes
Nonna says she knew she was pregnant before she got to Sydney and decided to say the baby was premature. She told Nonno she was pregnant, expecting him to be thrilled after 10 years of trying. Instead, he hit her, and Nonna was afraid for her life. She learned then that Nonno had had mumps as a child and knew he couldn’t have children. He’d lied to her when they got married, knowing that she wanted to have babies. Nonna was furious and hit him in return. Josie, confused, asks why Nonna didn’t leave. Nonna sighs that people are cruel, and Mama would’ve suffered most of all had Nonna married Marcus. Mama wouldn’t have fit in with Italians or Australians.
The revelation that Nonno knew he was infertile shows again how secrets are baked into Alibrandi family history. Nearly everyone in Josie’s family has kept some deep, dark secret—and those secrets have, across the board, hurt people. As Nonna explains why she didn’t leave, she essentially cites anti-Italian racism as her reasoning. Mama, she suggests, was able to grow up in a close-knit Italian community with Nonno as her father, but she wouldn’t have had any such support if she’d been born a Sandford.
Themes
Nonna explains that Nonno agreed to raise Mama as his own, provided that Nonna didn’t embarrass him anymore. Josie says that both Nonna and Mama paid for it. She would’ve left. Nonna says that one day, when Josie has children, she’ll understand what sacrifice is, but Josie asks how Nonna could stand never seeing Marcus again. Nonna says that she sees Marcus every time she looks at Mama.
Nonna makes the case here that when a person becomes a parent, their priorities change: supporting their child becomes far more important than what they want for their own life. Josie isn’t a parent yet, so this isn’t something she can grasp. In her mind, a loving relationship is more important.
Themes
Josie says she wishes Nonna would tell Mama the truth. Nonna explains that when Mama got pregnant, she saw the same hateful look in Nonno’s eyes. She knew helping Mama would backfire, so she allowed Nonno to kick Mama out. She consistently backed Nonno up when he mistreated Mama, waiting for God to punish her. Nonna says her years without Mama and Josie were her punishment—and now, things will never be okay. Josie sobs that Mama loves Nonna, but Mama just doesn’t understand why Nonna treats her the way she does.
Josie now realizes that Nonna doesn’t dislike Mama and didn’t mistreat her on purpose. Rather, Nonna was constrained by Nonno and feared that showing Mama any affection or help was going to make things worse for both of them. Nonna seems to imply that she feared Nonno would’ve been more violent towards Mama than he was, given how he beat her when she revealed she was pregnant with Mama.
Themes
Josie stays the night with Nonna. She realizes now that she barely knows Nonna—Nonna didn’t follow the rules, didn’t worry about the gossips, and took chances. This is why Mama is alive in the first place. It’s a scary thought that Mama wouldn’t be here if Nonna had followed the rules. Josie promises to keep Nonna’s secret, and she asks Nonna to let Michael into her home again. That night, Josie cries and prays. She knows that two of the strongest women in the world love her.
After learning Nonna’s secret, Josie realizes that her assumptions about Nonna are all wrong. Nonna isn’t a mean old lady who’s vain and nosy—she’s been trying to support and protect her family for years and, when possible, do things that also happen to make her happy. Josie becomes more mature as she realizes how relatable Nonna is, and she starts to feel more at peace in her Italian family.
Themes
