On Sunday, September 14, the West Newton Cinema was filled with memory, humor, and resilience as actress, screenwriter, and essayist Marianne Leone and her husband, Chris Cooper, read from her new novel Christina the Astonishing. The free event was jointly organized by Newtonville Books and the West Newton Cinema as part of the theater’s “Cinema Reads” literary series.
Leone, who grew up in Nonantum and attended Our Lady’s Catholic School, describes her novel as fiction rooted in lived experience. “I wanted fiction because I have created some characters that I wish I had met,” she explained. “That’s the delight of fiction as opposed to memoir.”
She was joined on stage by her husband, Academy Award–winning actor Chris Cooper, who read several male voices in the excerpted chapter. The passage they performed revolved around the Catholic school curriculum of the 1960s, where young Christina is confronted with lessons on leprosy and sin. Leone’s wry delivery drew knowing laughter from audience members, many of whom had attended Catholic schools themselves.
The reading was followed by a lively Q&A session. Leone spoke candidly about how deeply those early experiences shaped her, from moments of fear and guilt to the storytelling culture that later nourished her acting and writing careers. “Every Sunday was a long Sunday dinner where people told stories,” she said. “That really contributes to becoming an actor, a writer, the arts, because storytelling is what it’s all about.”
Audience members were particularly interested in Leone’s family history. She spoke with affection about her late father, who ran the Leone Café on Adams Street in Nonantum. Though he never had formal schooling, he filled their home with books. “He bought tons of books and put them in a closet, and he opened the door when I was about five and said, ‘This is for you. This is your place,’” Leone recalled. “I admired very much that he was self-taught.”
For many attending, the event was more than a literary reading. It was a reunion of sorts. A show of hands revealed that several had grown up in Nonantum during the same period and had attended Our Lady’s School. The shared memories of CYO dances, neighborhood hangouts, and the strict rules of parish life brought nods and laughter.In introducing the event, Nick Petrulakis of Newtonville Books said, “Reading Christina the Astonishing is like stepping into memory itself. It’s jagged, it’s luminous, and it’s unforgettable.”
