Olivia (novel)
Encyclopedia
Olivia is the second to last novel by Judith Rossner
Judith Rossner
Judith Perelman Rossner was an American novelist, best known for her 1975 novel Looking for Mr. Goodbar, which was inspired by the murder of Roseann Quinn and examined the underside of the seventies sexual liberation movement. Though Looking for Mr. Goodbar remained Rossner's best known and best...

, author of the critically acclaimed novels Looking for Mr. Goodbar
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a 1975 novel by Judith Rossner. Rossner based the novel on the events surrounding the brutal murder of Roseann Quinn, a 28-year-old New York City schoolteacher in 1973.-References:...

and August. Published in 1994, Olivia deals with a single mother's struggles with parental alienation
Parental alienation
Parental alienation is a social dynamic, generally occurring due to divorce or separation, when a child expresses unjustified hatred or unreasonably strong dislike of one parent, making access by the rejected parent difficult or impossible...

 after reconnecting with her long estranged daughter.

Plot

The book opens with Caroline "Cara" Ferrante (née Sindler), a chef and popular cooking teacher, doing a screen test for a cable
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...

 cooking show. Despite a messy mishap during filming, Caroline easily aces the test, having successfully entertained her audience with anecdotes about her daughter, the title character.

Later, at home, she has an unpleasant encounter with her teenaged daughter who is furious that she was discussed on the show. Olivia storms off to her room, leaving her mother on the verge of tears. At this point, Caroline begins to explain her situation with her daughter.

In flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...

, Caroline, the daughter of two Jewish professors at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, recounts her early childhood interest in cooking. This is an interest which her academic parents discourage. Learning recipes from several of the housekeeper-cooks that the family employs, Caroline learns to speak Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

 from Anna, one of the housekeepers. When Anna leaves to help her sons run a restaurant in Italy], Caroline becomes her family's cook.

Caroline eventually enrolls in college, which she hates. Dissatisfied, she drops out to work as a mother's helper in Italy. She reconnects with Anna, who gives her a job at the family restaurant. It is there that she meets Angelo Ferrante, a thirty-something Sicilian who also works at the restaurant.

Nineteen-year-old Caroline and Angelo begin an affair. Caroline becomes pregnant and, despite the fact that she is not in love with Angelo, marries him in a civil ceremony. She gives birth to Olivia in October of the same year.

Anna dies of heart disease and Angelo begins to squabble with her sons about the menu at the restaurant. Anna's son push Caroline and Angelo out of the business. The couple then sets up a restaurant in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

.

Caroline and Angelo's marriage begins to sour. Angelo begins to cheat, even going so far as having an affair with one of the waitresses. He has also begun to turn Olivia against her mother and to belittle Caroline's Jewish heritage. After several episodes of abuse--one of them physical—Caroline decides to divorce Angelo, leaving twelve-year-old Olivia, who prefers her father, in Rome.

Caroline returns to the states and begins teaching cooking classes to support herself. She regularly writes and calls Olivia who wants nothing to do with her having formed a tight bond with her father's girlfriend. Several years later, Olivia comes to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 to live with Caroline; Angelo has broken up with his girlfriend and Olivia does not get along with Angelo's new wife.

Caroline and Olivia have a tense relationship. Olivia, who shows little interest in Caroline, is moody and quick to take offense. She has also internalized her father's anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

 and believes the negative stories that her father has told her about Caroline.

Olivia enrolls in high school. A good student, Olivia earns high marks in school, setting her sights on Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. She also gets a part-time job babysitting for Leon Klein, the doctor who lives upstairs. Caroline eventually strikes up a casual friendship with Leon and his children, preparing matzo
Matzo
Matzo or matzah is an unleavened bread traditionally eaten by Jews during the week-long Passover holiday, when eating chametz—bread and other food which is made with leavened grain—is forbidden according to Jewish law. Currently, the most ubiquitous type of Matzo is the traditional Ashkenazic...

 ball soup for them and teaching the children to bake cookies. When Olivia finds out, she petulantly quits and begins ignoring the Kleins.

Caroline and Leon begin to date. They decide to keep the relationship secret from their respective children until Leon officially divorces his wife who abandoned the family many years previously. At around this time, Olivia begins to date Pablo Cruz, a much older telephone company employee. Although Caroline disapproves of the age difference, she does like Pablo and makes an unsuccessful attempt to counsel Olivia about the importance of using birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...

. This offends Olivia, who despite never going to church, still considers herself Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

.

Caroline's relationship with Leon intensifies; Even though Caroline is disappointed by Leon's desire not to have any more children, the two talk of marriage, even making a late night visit to the hospital for what they later discover is an unnecessary blood test. Caroline backs out of marriage plans but does move upstairs into Leon's apartment. The two then begin plans to combine the two apartments, obtaining permission from the landlord. She decides to let Pablo and Olivia live downstairs but continues to use the kitchen and office area. Caroline begins to suspect that Olivia, who is experiencing nausea, is pregnant.

Olivia confirms Caroline's suspicions. Caroline convinces Olivia, who has been accepted into Harvard, that she cannot attend college in the fall if she goes through with the pregnancy. Caroline then calls the doctor and makes an appointment for a gynecological exam. She also promises to arrange an abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

 for Olivia who claims not to want a baby. Olivia talks things over with Pablo who convinces her that it is a sin to terminate a pregnancy. The two run off to Florida and get married in a civil ceremony. When they return, they announce their intention to marry in the Catholic Church in order to please Pablo's family. The newly married couple asks Caroline to cater the event for them. Realizing that Olivia will never have the abortion, Caroline reluctantly agrees.

This enrages Leon who feels that Caroline's decision to go along with Olivia's plans is a "cop out." This creates tension between the two; Leon correctly guesses that Caroline is not pushing Olivia to abort because she secretly wishes to become the baby's primary caretaker. He reiterates his desire not to have any more children in his care.

After Olivia and Pablo's wedding, Caroline and Leon get married as well, serving kosher food at their ceremony. Olivia gives birth to a girl soon after. Olivia sinks into a deep post-partum depression completely ignoring the baby and taking little interest in anything that goes on around her. After Pablo and Caroline discover Olivia curled up in the cradle one night, they send her to psychiatrist who prescribes anti-depressants.

Olivia slowly recovers but never takes much of an interest in her daughter, Donna. The work of caring for the baby falls on Pablo, whose relationship with Olivia begins to fray, and Caroline, who has quit her cooking show. Even Leon develops a fondness for Donna

Olivia and Caroline settle into a reasonably friendly relationship. At the end of the novel, Olivia, who intends to enroll in college, who had always claimed to have few positive memories of her mother, spontaneously recounts the times where they walked through the streets of Rome together looking at the statues and visiting the tourist areas. She then holds Donna in her lap.

Critical reception

Olivia fared a little better with the critics than Rossner's previous post-August novels. Ruth Reichl of the New York Times wrote in 1994, "Few writers are better than Judith Rossner at describing the agonized ties between mothers and daughters."
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