Reserve Looking for Alibrandi study guide here - includes historical and cultural context, chapter/scene/story summaries, character profiles and analysis of themes and genres.
Article: Why Looking for Alibrandi is so damn important...
Eight writers to share their thoughts on what makes Looking for Alibrandi so special, including....
1. The feeling of being caught between cultures
2. The strong female lead
3. The nuanced exploration of mental health
4. The realistic portrayal of first love
5. The beautifully accurate family relationships
6. The different depictions of womanhood
7. The raw emotional experience
8. The ultimate coming of age story
Synopsis
Josephine Alibrandi is seventeen and in her final year at a wealthy girls’ school. This is the year she meets her father, the year she falls in love, the year she searches for Alibrandi and finds the real truth about her family – and the identity she has been searching for.
A moving and revealing book, unusual for its honesty and its insight into the life of a young person on the brink of adulthood. Multi-award-winning, a bestseller and made into an award-winning feature film, Looking for Alibrandi has become a modern classic.
Josie
The protagonist of the novel, Josie is a 17-year-old Italian Australian girl living in Sydney. Over the course of the novel, she prepares for her High School Certificate (HSC) exams; reconnects with her long-lost father, Michael; and develops a strong relationship with her maternal grandmother, Nonna. Josie is driven and wants to study law and become a barrister (lawyer) after college. Her Mama is a single mother, and the two have a close and loving relationship. At the beginning of the novel, Josie is loud, dramatic, and self-absorbed. She is extremely concerned with what other kids at school think of her (and believes that nobody likes her), while also resenting how much Nonna cares about what people think about the family. She believes that money is the key to happiness and thus hopes to be wealthy and influential when she grows up. Josie’s relationship to her Italian heritage is complicated: though she loves some of the Italian traditions and knows that she has a huge, supportive community to call on, she also hates that her classmates use racist slurs and discriminate against her because she’s Italian.
Mama
Mama is Josie’s mother and Nonna’s daughter. She’s described as being “natural” and gorgeous, as well as extremely gentle and kind. She works as a secretary for several doctors’ offices in Sydney. Mama had Josie when she was 17 with Michael Andretti, though Michael moved away to Adelaide believing that Mama was going to have an abortion. Her relationship with her parents, Nonna and Nonno, was strained when she was a child—she could never understand why Nonno seemed to resent her and why Nonna always kept her at a distance. So Mama makes a point to cultivate a close, loving relationship with Josie. Josie feels protective of her relationship with Mama, so she becomes extremely afraid when Mama starts to become more serious with a coworker, Paul Presilio. Josie also regularly stands up for Mama to Nonna, who likes to critique how Mama is raising Josie (Nonna believes it’s Mama’s fault that Josie is disrespectful). But Mama is just as loyal to Josie in return—when Michael returns to Sydney and discovers that Josie is his daughter, Mama is adamant that Michael doesn’t have to have a relationship with Josie, but she insists that he’s the one losing out, and she vows to not let him hurt her.
Nonna
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.
Zia
Zia Patrizia is Nonna’s younger sister and Josie’s great-aunt. She and her husband, Zio Ricardo, are regular fixtures at family functions. Zia Patrizia immigrated to Australia a little more than a year after Nonna and Nonno did, and she arrived in the country pregnant with her first child. Patrizia and Nonna were extremely close as young women, and their relationship continues to be close into their old age.
Jacob
Jacob Coote is Josie’s boyfriend for much of the novel. They’re the same age; he attends and is the school captain of Cook High School, a public school in Sydney. When they were children, Jacob and a group of his friends accosted Josie and threw eggs and rotting produce at her for being Italian. As young adults, Josie initially struggles to reconcile this memory with the handsome, charming young man in front of her. Jacob is a compelling orator, though he doesn’t have the skill or polish of someone on a debate team (like Josie or John Barton). But after seeing Jacob speak at Have a Say Day, Josie develops a crush on him. Jacob rides a motorcycle, wears T-shirts emblazoned with crude language, and is perfectly happy looking forward to a decidedly middle-class future. He takes issue with Josie’s Italian heritage, her involved family, and her insistence that he speak correctly.
Essay by author Alice Pung
When I first read Melina Marchetta’s much-loved book, Looking for Alibrandi, I was around the same age as Josephine Alibrandi. It was the first Australian book I discovered that did not ‘try hard’ to depict youth, class or ethnicity...continue reading...
