Looking for Alibrandi: Characters - Analysis

The protagonist of the novel, Josie is a 17-year-old Italian Australian girl living in Sydney. Over the course of the novel, she prepares for her High School Certificate (HSC) exams; reconnects with her long-lost father, Michael; and develops a strong relationship with her maternal grandmother, Nonna. Josie is driven and wants to study law and become a barrister (lawyer) after college.

Mama is Josie’s mother and Nonna’s daughter. She’s described as being “natural” and gorgeous, as well as extremely gentle and kind. She works as a secretary for several doctors’ offices in Sydney. Mama had Josie when she was 17 with Michael Andretti, though Michael moved away to Adelaide believing that Mama was going to have an abortion. Her relationship with her parents, Nonna and Nonno, was strained when she was a child—she could never understand why Nonno seemed to resent her and why Nonna always kept her at a distance.

Jacob Coote is Josie’s boyfriend for much of the novel. They’re the same age; he attends and is the school captain of Cook High School, a public school in Sydney. When they were children, Jacob and a group of his friends accosted Josie and threw eggs and rotting produce at her for being Italian. As young adults, Josie initially struggles to reconcile this memory with the handsome, charming young man in front of her. Jacob is a compelling orator, though he doesn’t have the skill or polish of someone on a debate team (like Josie or John Barton)

Nonna is Josie’s maternal grandmother and Mama’s mother. An Italian immigrant, Nonna came to Australia with her husband, Nonno, when she was a newly married teenager in the 1930s. At first, Josie knows only the broad strokes about Nonna’s life—particularly that Nonna kicked Mama out when Mama became pregnant as a teen, and only started to cultivate a relationship with Mama and Josie after Nonno’s death 10 years ago.

Nonno was Josie’s tyrannical grandfather and Nonna’s husband; he passed away about 10 years prior to the start of the novel. He was 15 years older than Nonna when they married in Italy, and throughout their marriage, he was controlling and cruel to her. He decided to move them to Australia without consulting Nonna, and once in Australia, Nonna again had no choice as to where they settled down or what their lives looked like. Through the stories she tells Josie, Nonna implies that she didn’t think too much about Nonno’s poor treatment of her until she met the Australian man Marcus Sandford.

John is one of Josie’s love interests at first, but over the course of the novel he becomes one of her best friends. Since Josie joined the debate team two years before the novel begins, she and John have made a tradition of sneaking away to talk after every debate competition and so have developed a comfortable friendship over the years. John’s father is in Parliament and he comes from a family that’s been in politics for generations. His family is wealthy and well-connected, so John grew up with Ivy. This is disheartening for Josie, as she believes it’s inevitable that John will marry Ivy or someone like her, rather than Josie.

Marcus Sandford was Nonna’s lover when she was a young woman; he never appears in the novel except for in old photographs. Marcus was an Australian police officer who met Nonna when she lost her composure in the post office. He was, in Nonna’s retelling, one of the only Australians willing to befriend Italian immigrants, and he became extremely close with Nonna and with Zia Patrizia.

Michael is Josie’s father; he works as a barrister (lawyer) in Adelaide. When the novel begins, he’s been absent for Josie’s entire life, as he and Mama conceived Josie as teenagers—and Michael’s family moved to Adelaide right after Mama became pregnant. Michael believed that Mama had an abortion and so didn’t know Josie existed until he returns to Sydney, where he grew up, and reconnects with Nonna.

Ivy is the school captain of St. Martha’s and, for much of the novel, Josie thinks of her as an antagonist and refers to her as “Poison Ivy.” Ivy’s father is a wealthy, well-known doctor in Sydney, and Ivy hopes to follow in her father’s footsteps. Josie detests Ivy and assumes that she doesn’t have any cares in the world because of her wealth and social status.