Silvia by MAYA CARUSO is an insightful, tender, and wickedly funny novel that follows an Italo-Australian mother and daughter, where not even a heaping plate of lasagne can fix a messy love life.
Read on for an extract.
In Italian culture, to be divorced, alone and female was the unholy trinity. It didn’t matter that you paid your own mortgage or were leading a semi-functional adult life; it was simply understood you would eventually spiral into alcoholism, drug addiction or prostitution. Possibly all three. The fact that I hadn’t yet succumbed to any of these fates was seen less as a triumph and more as a temporary, suspicious reprieve.
At the heart of Maya Caruso’s sharp, tender, insightful and wickedly ironic novel is Silvia Junior: a 42-year-old Italo-Australian workaholic who’s nailed career success but flunked personal fulfilment. Romance? She ghosted it sometime after her divorce.
Enter her mother, Silvia Senior: a widowed Italian matriarch with opinions laced with old-school patriarchy and a Rolodex of gossip-hungry nonnas. She’s made it her full-time job to remind Junior that she’s alone, unmarried and probably infertile. Their relationship is equal parts love, loathing and mutual dependency – a tangle of guilt, meatballs and inherited trauma.
When an old friend resurfaces, Junior’s carefully collapsed world starts to expand. There’s flirting, there’s dancing, there’s actual joy. Shockingly, Senior gets swept up in the action too, dipping a cautious toe into the world of dating.
But as both women step out of their comfort zones, life pushes back. Chaos ensues, and feelings get messy. Silvia is a funny, heart-breaking look at what happens when women – especially ones raised to hold it all together – turn their backs on expectations and go in search of themselves.
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EXTRACT
MORAL BOUNDARIES
Feeling less than fresh after a sweaty bus ride from Arncliffe to Brighton via Rockdale, I spilled out onto the footpath like a dropped grape, my face plastered with low-level regret. I’d spent thirty minutes stuffed next to an elderly Chinese woman wielding a two-wheel shopping trolley crammed with what I can only describe as half the contents of Paddy’s Markets: choy sum; taro; mystery greens; a rogue leek poking out like it was trying to escape. I eyed the trolley with a blend of awe and envy and began silently workshopping a business plan for designer two-wheel trolleys. Think sleek Scandi wheels paired with a gaudy pop of colour, a metallic gold or even electric purple. I’d call them ‘Haul’. The logo would be ironic, the price point exorbitant.
And that’s how I stumbled across the hire boutique on Brighton’s main street: sweaty, sunstruck and vaguely entrepreneurial. The shop was full of this season’s most desperate gowns – everything frothy, fringed, feathered or fundamentally too tight. It was a walking advertisement for the vibrant, glitter-dusted lives of people who still went to events with a capital E. People with invitations. People who owned bronzer. People who, unlike me, had not been relegated to low-lighting socialisation. When was the last time I’d worn a gown that wasn’t mandated by a workplace function and a panic buy from David Jones?
I dug into my memory banks, pushing past the mental cobwebs and half-formed thoughts. Ah, yes – there it was. A formal event with my ex-husband. I quickly slammed that drawer shut and backed away slowly.
‘I’m just looking for my friend,’ I murmured to the sales assistant, a porcelain-skinned twenty-something with a nose ring and the sort of eyeliner that made her look simultaneously like Cleopatra and a raccoon.
‘In here!’ Dara’s voice floated out from the change rooms like a siren’s call – or more accurately, a seagull demanding chips.
I nodded at Cleopatra and made my way through a tangle of sequins, body-con velvet and mesh nightmares to the change rooms just as Dara snapped the curtain open and emerged like a Las Vegas chandelier.
‘There you are,’ she said, throwing one arm up and the other into her hair like she was about to break into interpretive dance. ‘What took you so long?’
‘The bus,’ I replied, collapsing onto a black velvet loveseat designed for exhausted boyfriends and sugar daddies.
‘I still don’t understand why you don’t have a car. You, with that job – why are you slumming it on public transport like you’re in a Coldplay film clip?’
‘I actually like it,’ I said breezily. ‘You know, being among the people. Feeling the pulse of the street. Today I sat next to a woman with one of those granny trolleys and started developing a business model for fashionable ones. It’s got legs.’
Dara blinked at me. Then she burst into laughter.
‘This is what I love about you, Sil. You always have a fresh take. Bonkers. But fresh.’
Again there was a tone to it, which I chose to ignore.
She did a little pivot, gesturing to the dress. Strapless. Beige. Beaded within an inch of its life. It was less of a dress and more of a sequinned tapestry trying to escape from itself.
‘What do you think?’ she asked, her voice hopeful and her hands dramatically lifting hair off her neck.
‘It’s . . . very ornate,’ I said delicately. ‘Too much?’
‘Well, it’s a lot. How much does that thing weigh? I’m surprised you’re still upright.’
She threw her head back and cackled. ‘You have to suffer for fashion,’ she declared.
‘But is it . . . fashion?’ I replied, squinting at her like she was a painting I didn’t quite understand.
Dara shuffled over to me in tiny, glittering steps, her face pleading. ‘Sil, when I was young, I loved fashion. Remember? Missoni! I would eat two-minute noodles all week to afford Vogue. Now, I’ve lost my look. I dress like all the other wogs – over-tanned and over-beaded.’
The woman had never been short of a dollar, so she’d hardly eaten two-minute noodles for that purpose. I suppose it suited her Carrie-in-Sex-and-the-City fantasy.
‘You said it, not me,’ I deadpanned. ‘But if the shoe fits. Or the dress.’
We collapsed into laughter.
‘What would you have me wear?’ she asked finally. ‘You’re still modern and mysterious and catching public transport. Not to mention shagging your ex-boyfriend from a lifetime ago.’
‘Wow, okay,’ I said, standing up and pretending the description wasn’t accurate. ‘Let’s find something less Fran Drescher, more sophisticated chic.’
I weaved through the racks, dodging an aggressive purple satin mermaid gown and something that should have been in Elton John’s wardrobe circa 1982 until I found it: black, fitted, with sheer side panels and not a bead in sight.
I returned triumphantly and held it up.
‘No way,’ Dara said, recoiling. ‘You won’t be able to see my boobs in that.’
‘Since when is that a requirement?’
‘Since my husband paid for them. They’re the only part of me holding up,’ she said, gripping the beaded bodice and hiking her cleavage up to her chin.
‘You’re still gorgeous, Dara.’
‘Stop it. I’m old. I don’t turn heads anymore. I’m in another sexless relationship. That’s like . . . number four. Am I cursed?’ At that precise moment, the sales assistant re-entered the scene with all the finesse of a carnival barker, holding up a hot pink gown trimmed with what looked like flamingo feathers.
‘This just came in,’ she announced proudly.
‘Better!’ Dara cried, grabbing it with the urgency of someone being handed a life raft. She disappeared back into the change room. ‘But honestly, Sil,’ her voice floated out, ‘every man I’ve been with – no sex. What’s wrong with me?’
‘Nothing. I think it’s normal for things to slow down over time . . .’
‘You’ve heard of this before?’
‘Yes. People can only be wildly into each other for so long. Then reality kicks in. You start noticing their breathing.’ Dara reemerged, pink and feathered and deeply ridiculous.
She looked like a fancy pigeon at Mardi Gras. ‘What do you think?’ she asked.
I stood beside her in the mirror, delicately fingering the trim.
‘It’s a fair way from Missoni,’ I said solemnly.
She burst out laughing and pulled me into a tight hug, feathers everywhere. ‘Sil,’ she said, pulling back and gripping my arms, ‘I need to have an affair.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I need to have an affair. I need to feel fresh. Alive. Wanted.’ ‘Can’t you just go to Bali?’
‘No. I need to feel hot. Desired. Remember that feeling?
When someone can’t keep their hands off you?’ I widened my eyes. ‘Yes.’
She sighed and slumped onto the black couch. ‘I want to feel like I matter. I want someone to look at me and want to unzip me. Anthony looks at me like I’m one of the boys, or worse, his mother.’
‘Maybe he’s just tired?’ I supplied unhelpfully.
She snorted. ‘He sleeps like he’s in a medically induced coma.’
The sales assistant appeared again. ‘So, the pink one?’
Dara smiled sweetly. ‘No, I’ll take the beaded one. It’s the only one where my boobs look alive.’
We left the store in a whoosh of tulle and commentary, and stepped into the sunlight, blinking like hangover victims.
‘Let’s go get a drink,’ Dara said, linking her arm through mine. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll toast to boobs and betrayal.’
‘Perfect.’ She grinned. ‘And maybe after the second drink, we can start a Pinterest board for your trolley business.’
I laughed. ‘Let’s do it. Glamour for groceries. Fashion for the frugal. We’ll be billionaires.’
As we walked off down the strip, the breeze lifted the edge of a feather still clinging to Dara’s shoulder. I didn’t flick it off. Aphrodite’s was perched like a badly placed lash opposite the main beach at Brighton, its floor sticky in a way that suggests either spilled cocktails or spilled secrets. It wasn’t evening yet, but the place was packed – the algorithm seemed to have spat out a crowd assembled entirely from medically enhanced Instagram stories. Trout pouts that shimmered around teeth so white they could signal ships to shore, thanks to the fluorescent lighting; foreheads that hadn’t moved since the Morrison government; and hairlines flown in direct from Istanbul. There were extensions of every variety – lashes, nails, moral boundaries. The fake breasts were proudly on display, as were the glowing fake tans.
I let my pallor shine like an act of protest. My flat-chat hair was a political statement. When our Aperol Spritzes arrived, I downed mine like it was a flu shot.
Dara leaned in, her earrings like tiny wind chimes clinking with judgement and love. ‘So tell me the situation with Graz.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘There’s no situation. We’re hanging out, that’s all.’
She narrowed her eyes and shook her head slowly, like a woman watching someone walk into traffic. ‘Oh, please. Graz is not the “hanging out” type.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean he’s not some laissez-faire Bondi boy who surfs in the morning and flirts in the afternoon. Graz is old school. He’s Italian. He’s possessive. He’s wog-wired. You should know better.’
‘Possessive? Graz? He ghosted me last time we dated, remember?’ I took a sip of my second spritz.
‘Yeah, back then. Because the world was different for him.
He had options. A full head of hair. Hope.’
Options – she was implying that, back then, I hadn’t been enough, but now, given the limited alternatives, I was. I gave her the universal female signal for please explain: the squinty eyes and head tilt with a side of raised eyebrow.
‘Graz is in his forties. He doesn’t have a wife. No kids. He lives with his parents. He hasn’t covered himself in ethnic glory. And by our community standards –’ she gestured around at the room full of waxed chests and wedding rings, ‘– he’s a failure.’
‘Wow. Harsh.’
‘I’m just saying, he’ll be looking to lock something down. Fast. Like, put-a-ring-on-it-before-the-pesto-cools fast. You don’t realise what a rare bird you are.’
I laughed. ‘Please. I’m a pigeon in Kmart sneakers.’
‘No. You’re attractive. Single. Gainfully employed. No kids. No visible trauma. You’re like a unicorn at the Marrickville Metro.’
I shook my head again. Standard Dara. Always turning life into a chessboard.
‘Mark my words, he’s going to try and call this a relationship. Quickly.’
The topic was too tender, too new, like a bruise forming under the skin. Graz was still magic in my memory. I didn’t want to lay him on the chopping board of Brighton-le-Sands Beach gossip just yet.
‘Can we order another drink?’ I said, motioning for the waitress.
‘And maybe some grilled octopus?’ Dara added.
‘And halloumi,’ I said. ‘Let’s be complete about our Mediterranean breakdown.’
We settled back, letting the spritzes wash over us. Outside, the sky was bruising into deep plum. The ocean glinted in that heartbreak way it does right before night falls. Inside, it was a sea of orange cocktails, golden skin and camera-ready smiles. You could practically hear the hashtags forming.
‘So,’ I said, pivoting the spotlight like any good friend, ‘what’s the situation with your husband?’
She didn’t flinch, just studied the menu like it held the meaning of life.
‘There’s no situation. There’s just . . . nothing. Like, a vacuum where sex used to be. Passion evaporated. Now it’s just polite conversations about the vacuum cleaner and whose turn it is to pick up the dry cleaning.’
‘Jesus.’
She smiled weakly. ‘We never had the spark, Sil. Not like you and Graz. For me and Anthony, it was all about compatibility. Respect. Our parents liked each other. The community gave us their blessing. It made sense. On paper.’
‘Paper isn’t a place you live,’ I said quietly.
‘No. Paper burns.’ She sighed. ‘Sometimes, I think, “Am I really going to do this for the rest of my life? Be this woman? Go to Pilates. Clean the bathroom. Watch The Block with a man who touches me like I’m a decorative pillow?”’
I reached across and grabbed her hand. It was cold, clammy.
Her eyes flicked up and for the first time, she looked properly terrified. Sometimes Dara was too much, self-centred, like that time she had left me alone in Italy with no back-up . . . Yes, I did remember. But on other occasions, she was so vulnerable, fragile, honest – you couldn’t help but love her in those moments.
‘So leave him,’ I said softly.
She snorted. ‘And do what? Move back in with my parents? Be the forty-two-year-old divorcée? You know what people would say? The shame of it? It would kill my mother.’
‘Tell me about it. Here’s your example right here,’ I said, gesturing to myself. ‘But who cares what they think?’
‘I care,’ she whispered. ‘I care what they think. I care what I look like. I’ve spent my entire life being the It girl, the pretty girl, the well-put-together woman. I can’t just blow it all up now. I’m not like you.’
That stung more than I expected. But I let it pass.
She stared down at the table, her eyes glassy. ‘I just want to feel something. Not forever. Just once more. One little detour before I go back to being Mrs Nothing.’
‘You want to have an affair.’ It was a ridiculous solution. Like setting fire to a shed because it’s dusty.
‘I want to feel alive. And then I’ll go back. I swear. I’ll keep folding his laundry and making his mum’s moussaka recipe and pretending that the beige couch of my marriage isn’t swallowing me whole.’
‘Do you have someone in mind?’
She looked away too fast. There it was. That flicker of something. Guilt? Longing?
I inhaled sharply. ‘It’s Chris, isn’t it?’ She didn’t reply.
I nodded, understanding blooming like a stomach ache. ‘I’m not going to judge you,’ I said finally. ‘The world is
insane. Everyone’s coping in their own little deranged way. Yours just happens to involve grilled octopus and emotional adultery.’
She let out a broken laugh, then pressed her forehead against mine.
‘That’s why you were always my favourite,’ she said. ‘You never made me feel crazy. Even when I was.’
I squeezed her hand. ‘I think everyone’s a bit crazy right now. We’re just better at pretending. Brighton’s full of women screaming quietly into their Louis Vuitton pouches.’
A pause.
Then, with perfect comedic timing, our waiter arrived.
Hand on Dara’s shoulder. ‘Halloumi and octopus?’
‘God bless you,’ Dara said. ‘You’re the only man who’s touched me all month.’
We fell into helpless laughter, leaning into each other, the table trembling slightly under the weight of what we couldn’t say.
Seemingly on cue, and to reflect the thrust of the conversation, I received a text from Graz: Oooph . . . I think I might miss you. And my heart sparkled, but there was a tug as well. Dara’s words about locking it down. The sense that things were moving quickly, too quickly, the sense that I’ve made mistakes before . . .
I turned the phone over.
Outside, the streetlights flickered on, illuminating the double-parked BMWs and the afterglow of a thousand Instagram photos. The night began to shimmer with possibility and peril. And I wondered – not for the first time – if maybe Graz was right there in that space too: reckless, glittering, half-imagined.
Dara popped an olive into her mouth. ‘So what are you going to do about Graz?’
I sipped my drink, watching the orange slice float like a life raft. ‘Honestly? I think I’m just going to see what happens.’
‘Bold.’
‘No, it’s cowardly.’ I grinned. ‘But sometimes cowardice is underrated. Especially when everyone else is lighting fires.’
She clinked her glass against mine. ‘To cowards.’
‘To cowards with perfect hair and excellent taste in . . . halloumi?’
We drank.
And for a moment – just a flicker – we were young again. Not wives. Not mothers. Not spinsters. Not stories told at family functions in quiet, disappointed tones.
Just girls, laughing in a bar, bathed in the soft glow of chaos.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maya Caruso is a Sydney-based researcher and author whose love of storytelling is as strong as her espresso. The daughter of Italian migrants who arrived in Australia in the 1960s, she grew up in a home filled with loud laughter, much yelling, and endless curiosity about the world. When she’s not writing or diving into her latest research project, Maya can be found chasing after her two children or spoiling her very old (and delightful!) dog. Her work blends heart, history and humour, with a dash of Italian flair. Silvia is Maya’s first novel.
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