When Giuseppe Met Jackie

“Winner of the Ravello Tales Award 2018, this novella was launched in Ravello in Italy to coincide with the tourist season of 2019. Fictional, frivolous and fun, it re-imagines the summer of 1962 when Jackie Kennedy holidayed in Ravello. Like Cry Ma Ma to the Moon, this story was helped along by the inspiration of a painting. When in Ravello in the summer of 2017, I chanced upon Jacqueline Kennedy Ravello 1962, by Italian architect and painter Franco Fortunato, c2017. Franco told me that he was a teenager when the First Lady visited and recounted the experience vividly. Being myself entranced by the same grand vistas and villas as the famous American, I began developing a story outline, doing further research on my return to Australia. I was thrilled that the artist gave permission for his painting to go on the cover when the story was published in Italy. I can’t really explain why I chose to write in a gently comedic genre, perhaps because in Ravello I felt unusually free and happy.” - Lesley Synge

Download novella here for free

It’s August 1962 – the summer that Jackie Kennedy famously takes a vacation in Ravello. Also visiting the medieval village - reader, let your imagination fly! - are the reclusive cousins of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the famous novelist of Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), from Sicily. The three aristocrats – poet Lucio, botanist Giovanna and photographer Casimiro – are here because Lucio Piccolo di Calanovella has received a commission to translate ‘The Story of a Panic’ by English novelist EM Forster into Italian. His siblings are tagging along with him, along with their servant Pietro and dog Puc. As they visit the sights, the trio try to remain aloof from ‘Jackie fever’ by keeping their dear departed cousin Giuseppe foremost in mind. The spectacularly beautiful clifftop village is really turning on the hospitality for the American president’s wife, led by the mayor and the handsome wealthy industrialist Gianni Agnelli. Like it or not, the trio cannot escape.

When delicato Casimiro is accidentally locked in the grounds of Villa Rufulo on the day that Gianni Agnelli brings the American in for a private tour, he sees far more than he should of the private lives of celebrities. While the trio becomes entangled in the burgeoning story of Jackie Kennedy in Ravello, Pietro hatches plans of his own.