The Courtyard of Dreams

First novelist Monardo's poignant coming-of-age drama shows a teenager struggling to reconcile two cultural traditions during one pivotal summer in the early 1970s. Giulia Di Cuore, raised in Ohio by her Italian-born father Nicola, defies his attachment to Old World ways as she battles to become an independent woman and to enjoy such American liberties as dating. When she goes to Italy the summer before entering college, she discovers a world far different than what she had expected, one abundant with affectionate aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. Her Italian heritage gains meaning and helps Giulia begin to determine her own identity and escape her father's sometimes stifling, though always loving grasp. When he joins her at the summer's end, Nicola finds his idealized vision of Italy threatened by Giulia's newfound freedom, and he provokes a confrontation that affects the entire extended family. Monardo's spare but intense descriptions of the Italian landscape have the clarity of well-focused photos. Although Monardo indulges in some heavy foreshadowing and increases the pace too rapidly toward the end, she has made an impressive debut, delicately evoking both a young girl's burgeoning sensuality and her maturing appreciation of the emotional sustenance family can provide. (Aug.)