Reading Group Guide
About this Guide
The following author biography and list of questions about The Almond Picker are intended as resources to aid individual readers and book groups who would like to learn more about the author and this novel. We hope that this guide will provide you a starting place for discussion, and suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might approach The Almond Picker.
About the Book
By turns a mystery, a love story, and a fictional biography, The Almond Picker takes us to early 1960s Sicily, where a woman named Maria Rosalia Inzerillo has died suddenly. She was known as Mennulara, a nickname bestowed because of her early work as an almond picker on land owned by the wealthy Alfallipe family. Mennulara's death poses a number of perplexing questions for the villagers of Roccacolomba, especially the question of who Mennulara really was. How did she rise from an impoverished childhood to running the Alfallipe estate? Did she save her master's family from ruin, or did she audaciously hoard their profits for herself? Did she have mafia connections? Was she a victim or a savior? And how will the Alfallipes fare without her? With the wit and suspense of a fine thriller, The Almond Picker captures the life of a woman whose rare brio bought her untold freedoms—and whose most closely guarded secrets might even follow her to the grave.
About the Author
Simonetta Agnello Hornby was born in Palermo, Italy. She finished her law studies in England, where she now lives and where she is president of the Tribunal of Special Educational Needs. This is her first book.
1. What are your initial impressions of Mennulara, based on the observations provided in the first chapter? How would you characterize the various reactions to her death?
2. Discuss the novel's narrative voice. How does this tone serve to balance the tragic and comic elements of life in Roccacolomba? In what way does Simonetta Agnello Hornby make us members of a conversation club?
3. Consider the temperaments of the Alfallipe children: Lilla, Gianni, and Carmela. How will each of them remember Mennulara? How does Mennulara seem to have felt about them?
4. The early 1960s proved to be a time of political transition in Italy. As the country emerged from World War II and dealt with the remnants of prewar Fascism, other political parties—including Communists, Socialists, and Christian Democrats—vied for power. How does this political landscape become apparent in The Almond Picker? Why do some of the local Communists perceive Mennulara as a traitor to the working class rather than a heroine? What other cultural details accompany the author's choice of 1963 for a dateline? How might Mennulara's story have changed had it been given a contemporary setting?
5. Discuss the setting of The Almond Picker. What elements of Sicily are key to the way the novel unfolds? What is significant about an agrarian setting, as opposed to an urban one? Did Mennulara's nickname accurately capture her station during her adult life?
6. How do the people of Roccacolomba draw their many social distinctions, such as those between rich and poor, aristocrats and wealthy bourgeoisie, tradespeople and rural workers, men and women, educated and uneducated? What spurred Mennulara to rise above her initial station?
7. Which of the novel's lovers has the most fulfilling relationship? Is Orazio's treatment of Mennulara on a par with Massimo's treatment of Carmela? Why do Mennulara and Carmela tolerate such unequal affections from men?
8. Would you characterize signora Alfallipe's life as a tragic one? What common ground did she and Mennulara share? Where might Mennulara's personality have led her if she had been born to wealthier parents?
9. Who are the town's true power brokers? Who are its most dependent debtors? Who are the genuine masters of the Alfallipe estate?
10. Discuss the novel's mysteries, and the ways in which they are solved. What was your reaction to the use of coded messages in Mennulara's obituary to ensure the loyalty of her heirs? Why might the author have chosen antiquities as a means for conveying the inheritance? In your opinion, who are the novel's criminals? Who are its cleverest detectives?
11. How do the novel's primary characters view religion and religious rituals? How is Father Arena viewed? What is his understanding of faithfulness among his parish members?
12. Near the novel's end, additional clues are revealed about Mennulara through her nephews, Orazio's letter, and the memories of don Vincenzo Ancona. In the end, how would you personally answer the question "Who was Maria Rosalia Inzerillo?"
13. What is the effect of the novel's form itself, with features such as fifty brief chapters bearing understated titles? What keeps the vignettes cohesive? Having read to the end of the thirty days, what is your new understanding of chapter one?
14. Discuss the pivotal roles played by the novel's seemingly minor characters, such as Pietro Fatta, Dr. Mendicò, and many servants. What is the effect of such an elaborate and precisely drawn cast of characters?
15. What does The Almond Picker reveal about the nature of legacy? How might your biography unfold if it were narrated by both the major and the minor characters in your life?
