Looking for Alibrandi

by

Melina Marchetta

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Looking for Alibrandi makes teaching easy.

Nonna Katia Character Analysis

Nonna is Josie’s maternal grandmother and Mama’s mother. An Italian immigrant, Nonna came to Australia with her husband, Nonno, when she was a newly married teenager in the 1930s. At first, Josie knows only the broad strokes about Nonna’s life—particularly that Nonna kicked Mama out when Mama became pregnant as a teen, and only started to cultivate a relationship with Mama and Josie after Nonno’s death 10 years ago. Nonna is, in Josie’s opinion, too focused on keeping up appearances and getting into everyone’s business. She desperately wants Mama and Josie to come live with her, though she regularly criticizes Mama for the way she’s raising Josie and criticizes Josie for being “untidy” and “disrespectful.” But eventually, Josie begins to listen more carefully to Nonna’s stories. As their relationship improves and as Josie listens to Nonna’s stories, Josie discovers that Nonna was a bright, beautiful young woman who ended up in a stifling, loveless marriage. Moving to Australia was difficult, as nobody in Australia spoke Italian, and Nonna alone a lot given that Nonno worked away from home for months at a time. But Nonna struck up a friendship with an Australian police officer, Marcus Sandford, and eventually began having an affair with him—and he’s Mama’s father. Nonna explains that her difficult relationship with Mama stems from the fact that Nonno essentially kept her from having a close relationship with her daughter out of spite. Learning about Nonna’s deepest, darkest secret helps Josie develop empathy for the old woman. By the end of the novel, Josie sees her grandmother as a strong, supportive force in her life who had to make a number of impossibly difficult choices and did the best with what she was given.

Nonna Katia Quotes in Looking for Alibrandi

The Looking for Alibrandi quotes below are all either spoken by Nonna Katia or refer to Nonna Katia. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Family Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

“Our circumstances are different, Josephine. I’ve never got on with her. When I was young she used to keep me at such a distance that I used to wonder what I could possibly have done wrong. My father was much worse and it was only after he died that she took a step toward me. By then I kept my distance. With you, it’s different. She’s always wanted to be close to you.”

Related Characters: Mama (speaker), Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi, Nonna Katia, Nonno Francesco, Marcus Sandford
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Illegitimacy isn’t a big deal anymore. But it was back then and I remember the lies my grandmother would tell me. That I did have a father who died. My mother never lied to me that way. Maybe that’s what I dislike about Nonna. That she couldn’t accept things as they were. That she probably would have been spitting out some girl’s name and saying “They don’t even know who he is” if it weren’t her daughter.

Sometimes I feel really sorry for her. I think that my birth must have cut her like a knife and I feel as if she’s never forgiven Mama. But she loves us, even if it is in a suffocating way, and that makes me feel very guilty.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:

“It’s not the youth of today, Nonna,” I said angrily. “It’s you and people like you. Always worrying about what other people think. Always talking about other people. Well, we get spoken about as well, Nonna, and that’s your fault because you have no respect for other people’s privacy, including your daughter’s and granddaughter’s.”

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia
Page Number: 44
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

I could picture [Ivy’s] parents at dinner with [John’s]. They’d talk about politics, the arts and world affairs. Then I tried to picture them at dinner with Nonna and Mama. Not that I have ever been ashamed of them, by any means. But what would they talk about? The best way of making lasagna? Our families had nothing in common.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia, John Barton, Ivy Lloyd “Poison Ivy”
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“The Australians knew nuting about us. We were ignorant. They were ignorant. Jozzie, you wonder why some people my age cannot speak English well. It is because nobody would talk to them, and worse still, they did not want to talk to anyone.”

[…]

She went on, telling me more, and as I lay back I thought it was ironic that the same ignorance that was around that back then is still here now. An ignorance that will live on in this country for many years to come, I think.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Nonna Katia (speaker)
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

The first time I saw a nun without a habit, I prayed for her, thinking that she’d go to hell. But I think Sister Louise made me change my mind. I’ve never met a more liberated woman in my life and I realize now that these women do not live in cloistered worlds far away from reality. They know reality better than we do. I just wonder whether she was ever boy-crazy.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Nonna Katia, Sister Louise
Page Number: 110
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

Tomato Day.

Oh God, if anyone ever found out about it I’d die. There we sat last Saturday in my grandmother’s backyard cutting the bd bits off overripe tomatoes and squeezing them.

[…]

I can’t understand why we can’t go to Franklin’s and buy Leggo’s or Paul Newman’s special sauce. Nonna had heart failure at this suggestion and looked at Mama.

“Where is the culture?” she asked in dismay. “She’s going to grow up, marry an Australian and her children will eat fish-and-chips.”

Robert and I call this annual event “Wog Day” or “National Wog Day.” We sat around wondering how many other poor unfortunates our age were doing the same, but we were sure we’d never find out because nobody would admit to it.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Nonna Katia (speaker), Mama, Robert
Related Symbols: Spaghetti Sauce
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:

Like all tomato days we had spaghetti that night. Made by our own hands. A tradition that we’ll never let go. A tradition that I probably will never let go of either, simply because like religion, culture is nailed into you so deep you can’t escape it. No matter how far you run.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia, Robert
Related Symbols: Spaghetti Sauce
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

“[Zio Ricardo] couldn’t take me in when I was pregnant with you. My father wouldn’t have let my mother see her sister again if he did. But he let Robert’s mother take me in, saying that he couldn’t govern who his daughter let into her house.” She looked pensive. “My father practically spat at me. Called me every name under the sun. A tramp, a slut. He hit me across the face and even hit my mother. Worse still, he never saw you, Josie. Never saw his own granddaughter. Tell me, what comes first? What other people think of your family, or love?”

Related Characters: Mama (speaker), Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi, Nonna Katia, Nonno Francesco, Zio Ricardo, Robert
Page Number: 235
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

I think my family has come a long way. The sad thing is that so many haven’t. So many have stayed in their own little world. Some because they don’t want to leave it, others because the world around them won’t let them in.

All this information I’ve gathered from Nonna and Mama, who was a child of the sixties, I’m going to try to remember it.

So one day I can tell my children. And so that one day my granddaughter can try to understand me, like I’m trying to understand Nonna.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia
Page Number: 241-242
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

I wonder about life if Nonna had married Marcus Sandford. If Mama had been Christina Sandford, daughter of Marcus Sandford, and not Christina Alibrandi, daughter of an Italian immigrant. Would life have been different for her? Would she have depended on Michael so much and would she have slept with him like she did, which was more out of loneliness caused by her parents than pressured sex?

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia, Nonno Francesco, Marcus Sandford, Michael Andretti
Page Number: 261
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

But I think I cried more out of relief than self-pity. Relief because I was beginning to feel free.

From whom?

Myself, I think.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia, Marcus Sandford
Page Number: 264
Explanation and Analysis:

“Oh, Jozzie, you still do not understand,” she sighed. “Could you imagine how life would be for me if I married Marcus? Could you imagine what life would be for my sister? People are cruel. They would make our lives hell. But mostly, Jozzie, tink of Christina. Back then, tink of the way my darling Christina would be treated. It is not like these times, Jozzie. She would have no one. No Australians, no Italians. People would spit at her and say she was nuting.”

Related Characters: Nonna Katia (speaker), Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi, Mama, Nonno Francesco, Marcus Sandford
Page Number: 264
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

I’ve figured out that it doesn’t matter whether I’m Josephine Andretti who was never an Alibrandi, who should have been a Sandford and who may never be a Coote. It matters who I feel like I am—and I feel like Michael and Christina’s daughter and Katia’s granddaughter; Sera, Anna, and Lee’s friend, and Robert’s cousin.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia, Marcus Sandford, Michael Andretti, Anna, Sera, Lee, Robert
Page Number: 312-313
Explanation and Analysis:
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Looking for Alibrandi PDF

Nonna Katia Quotes in Looking for Alibrandi

The Looking for Alibrandi quotes below are all either spoken by Nonna Katia or refer to Nonna Katia. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Family Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

“Our circumstances are different, Josephine. I’ve never got on with her. When I was young she used to keep me at such a distance that I used to wonder what I could possibly have done wrong. My father was much worse and it was only after he died that she took a step toward me. By then I kept my distance. With you, it’s different. She’s always wanted to be close to you.”

Related Characters: Mama (speaker), Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi, Nonna Katia, Nonno Francesco, Marcus Sandford
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Illegitimacy isn’t a big deal anymore. But it was back then and I remember the lies my grandmother would tell me. That I did have a father who died. My mother never lied to me that way. Maybe that’s what I dislike about Nonna. That she couldn’t accept things as they were. That she probably would have been spitting out some girl’s name and saying “They don’t even know who he is” if it weren’t her daughter.

Sometimes I feel really sorry for her. I think that my birth must have cut her like a knife and I feel as if she’s never forgiven Mama. But she loves us, even if it is in a suffocating way, and that makes me feel very guilty.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:

“It’s not the youth of today, Nonna,” I said angrily. “It’s you and people like you. Always worrying about what other people think. Always talking about other people. Well, we get spoken about as well, Nonna, and that’s your fault because you have no respect for other people’s privacy, including your daughter’s and granddaughter’s.”

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia
Page Number: 44
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

I could picture [Ivy’s] parents at dinner with [John’s]. They’d talk about politics, the arts and world affairs. Then I tried to picture them at dinner with Nonna and Mama. Not that I have ever been ashamed of them, by any means. But what would they talk about? The best way of making lasagna? Our families had nothing in common.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia, John Barton, Ivy Lloyd “Poison Ivy”
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“The Australians knew nuting about us. We were ignorant. They were ignorant. Jozzie, you wonder why some people my age cannot speak English well. It is because nobody would talk to them, and worse still, they did not want to talk to anyone.”

[…]

She went on, telling me more, and as I lay back I thought it was ironic that the same ignorance that was around that back then is still here now. An ignorance that will live on in this country for many years to come, I think.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Nonna Katia (speaker)
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

The first time I saw a nun without a habit, I prayed for her, thinking that she’d go to hell. But I think Sister Louise made me change my mind. I’ve never met a more liberated woman in my life and I realize now that these women do not live in cloistered worlds far away from reality. They know reality better than we do. I just wonder whether she was ever boy-crazy.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Nonna Katia, Sister Louise
Page Number: 110
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

Tomato Day.

Oh God, if anyone ever found out about it I’d die. There we sat last Saturday in my grandmother’s backyard cutting the bd bits off overripe tomatoes and squeezing them.

[…]

I can’t understand why we can’t go to Franklin’s and buy Leggo’s or Paul Newman’s special sauce. Nonna had heart failure at this suggestion and looked at Mama.

“Where is the culture?” she asked in dismay. “She’s going to grow up, marry an Australian and her children will eat fish-and-chips.”

Robert and I call this annual event “Wog Day” or “National Wog Day.” We sat around wondering how many other poor unfortunates our age were doing the same, but we were sure we’d never find out because nobody would admit to it.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Nonna Katia (speaker), Mama, Robert
Related Symbols: Spaghetti Sauce
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:

Like all tomato days we had spaghetti that night. Made by our own hands. A tradition that we’ll never let go. A tradition that I probably will never let go of either, simply because like religion, culture is nailed into you so deep you can’t escape it. No matter how far you run.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia, Robert
Related Symbols: Spaghetti Sauce
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

“[Zio Ricardo] couldn’t take me in when I was pregnant with you. My father wouldn’t have let my mother see her sister again if he did. But he let Robert’s mother take me in, saying that he couldn’t govern who his daughter let into her house.” She looked pensive. “My father practically spat at me. Called me every name under the sun. A tramp, a slut. He hit me across the face and even hit my mother. Worse still, he never saw you, Josie. Never saw his own granddaughter. Tell me, what comes first? What other people think of your family, or love?”

Related Characters: Mama (speaker), Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi, Nonna Katia, Nonno Francesco, Zio Ricardo, Robert
Page Number: 235
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

I think my family has come a long way. The sad thing is that so many haven’t. So many have stayed in their own little world. Some because they don’t want to leave it, others because the world around them won’t let them in.

All this information I’ve gathered from Nonna and Mama, who was a child of the sixties, I’m going to try to remember it.

So one day I can tell my children. And so that one day my granddaughter can try to understand me, like I’m trying to understand Nonna.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia
Page Number: 241-242
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

I wonder about life if Nonna had married Marcus Sandford. If Mama had been Christina Sandford, daughter of Marcus Sandford, and not Christina Alibrandi, daughter of an Italian immigrant. Would life have been different for her? Would she have depended on Michael so much and would she have slept with him like she did, which was more out of loneliness caused by her parents than pressured sex?

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia, Nonno Francesco, Marcus Sandford, Michael Andretti
Page Number: 261
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

But I think I cried more out of relief than self-pity. Relief because I was beginning to feel free.

From whom?

Myself, I think.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia, Marcus Sandford
Page Number: 264
Explanation and Analysis:

“Oh, Jozzie, you still do not understand,” she sighed. “Could you imagine how life would be for me if I married Marcus? Could you imagine what life would be for my sister? People are cruel. They would make our lives hell. But mostly, Jozzie, tink of Christina. Back then, tink of the way my darling Christina would be treated. It is not like these times, Jozzie. She would have no one. No Australians, no Italians. People would spit at her and say she was nuting.”

Related Characters: Nonna Katia (speaker), Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi, Mama, Nonno Francesco, Marcus Sandford
Page Number: 264
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

I’ve figured out that it doesn’t matter whether I’m Josephine Andretti who was never an Alibrandi, who should have been a Sandford and who may never be a Coote. It matters who I feel like I am—and I feel like Michael and Christina’s daughter and Katia’s granddaughter; Sera, Anna, and Lee’s friend, and Robert’s cousin.

Related Characters: Josephine “Josie” Alibrandi (speaker), Mama, Nonna Katia, Marcus Sandford, Michael Andretti, Anna, Sera, Lee, Robert
Page Number: 312-313
Explanation and Analysis: