The Shoemaker's Wife

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. Discuss your overall impressions of The Shoemaker’s Wife. Which were your favorite and/or least favorite aspects of the novel, and why?

2. How did your experience reading The Shoemaker’s Wife compare and contrast with your experience reading Trigiani’s other novels, such as The View From Lake Como or All the Stars in the Heavens? How did your emotional attachment to the plot lines and characters of these stories compare?

3. Compare and contrast The Shoemaker’s Wife to other works of historical fiction. For example, what parallels do you notice between Trigiani’s novel and novels like Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend or Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn?

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. How did you emotionally respond to Ciro Lazzari and Enza Ravanelli’s repeated chance encounters? Have you ever had a romantic relationship that felt similarly guided by happenstance, fate, or destiny?

2. The Shoemaker’s Wife explores the theme of The Journey Toward Self-Discovery, Meaning, and Purpose. How does your own self-discovery journey compare and contrast with Ciro’s and Enza’s self-actualization journeys? Have you faced similar hardship on your path to autonomy and happiness?

3. Compare and contrast your family structure to Ciro’s and Enza’s family structures. Whose family most closely resembles yours? Which aspects of their family lives did you find most or least believable in light of your own experiences?

4. Ciro and Enza face constant challenges when they relocate to the US. How do the protagonists’ immigrant experiences align with or diverge from your own transition away from your family and home? Did you face similar challenges (relational, vocational, or otherwise) when you moved to a new place?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. The novel explores the Italian immigrant experience in the context of the early 20th-century US. How does Trigiani represent this experience? Is the American Dream real to her characters or a myth? Which aspects of Italian or Italian American culture do you feel Trigiani could have represented differently, and why? Which aspects of the immigrant experience do you feel were least or most accurate?

2. Ciro and Enza have contrasting views of the Catholic Church. Where and why do their religious beliefs diverge? What social, cultural, and/or ideological commentary is Trigiani making via her protagonists’ faiths?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. The novel is written from the third-person omniscient point of view. Discuss the narrative, thematic, and formal effects of this perspective. How would the novel resonate differently if written from Ciro’s and Enza’s alternating first-person points of view?

2. Compare and contrast Ciro’s and Vito Blazek’s characters. What does Enza see in each man? What does each relationship offer her? How might each man represent a different facet of Enza’s character?

3. The novel has three sections, each set in a different location: the Italian Alps, New York City, and Minnesota. Explore how these settings influence the narrative mood, thematic explorations, and the primary characters’ arcs. Why do you think Trigiani organized the novel this way?

4. Identify three symbols not mentioned in the guide and explore their meanings. For example, what do the convent, the opera house, and the wedding photo represent, and how do they relate to the novel’s thematic explorations?

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

1. Imagine that you’re adapting The Shoemaker’s Wife into a feature film. Who would you cast in the leading roles? Which artist or artists would be in charge of the film score? Which plot points would you add, omit, or alter to make the adaptation your own?

2. Imagine an alternate ending to Ciro and Enza’s story. How do you imagine their life together would have elapsed had Ciro not become ill and died? Would they still be together? Would they still reside in Minnesota? Would they have had another child?