Lena in Start Without Me: Character Analysis of Gary Janetti's Grandmother

Overview: A Grandmother Recovered Through Storytelling

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Lena is the narrator's maternal grandmother, an Italian immigrant who died two weeks before Gary Janetti was born. She never appears as a living character in the memoir; instead, she exists entirely through family oral history, recovered in Chapter 11 (“Grandma”) when the adult narrator takes his mother Felicia and aunt Santa to lunch in the city to hear their stories about her. Despite her absence from the narrator's life, Lena looms large in the book as a figure of strength, defiance, and unconditional care—someone the narrator believes would have accepted and fought for him as a gay man.

The chapter is the emotional center of the memoir. Lena's story is told in fragments: her immigration from Italy as a child, her scandalous divorce in the 1930s, her second marriage to a widower, her poverty, her fierce defense of her children, and her protection of a gay neighbor named Tommy. The narrator gathers these pieces “never all at once” until the lunch scene, where his mother and aunt finally fill in the gaps.

Plot Role: A Presence Recovered Through Story

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Lena's role in the narrative is structural as much as emotional. She is the ancestor whose life story the narrator must assemble from the memories of others. The chapter functions as a kind of excavation: the narrator has gathered bits and pieces over the years but never the full picture. His mother was unable to talk about her mother for years—she would become emotional and change the subject. The lunch with his mother and aunt is the first time the narrator hears the complete story.

This makes Lena a character defined by absence and reconstruction. She is not a participant in the memoir's present-tense events but a ghost whose influence the narrator feels. He thinks about her often when young, imagining her as perfect. The dead, he observes, can be so much more interesting than the living—a line that captures how Lena functions as an idealized figure in his imagination.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

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Lena's character is revealed almost entirely through actions rather than direct description. The evidence shows:

Defiance and courage. Her mother's decision to sell the farm and sail to New York after discovering her husband's infidelity is the family's founding act of defiance. Lena, at seven, is brought into this fight—she arrives in America holding the hand of a woman who came to fight for what was hers. This is the template for Lena's own later defiance.

Refusal to accept abuse. Lena divorced her first husband because he physically abused her. The narrator notes this was incredibly taboo, almost unheard of, for Italian-Americans in the 1930s. She left anyway. The narrator calls her scandalous and extraordinary—she defied everything built to tell her she must stay.

Protectiveness. When Sister Letitia unfairly punished the narrator's mother, Lena was called to the school and told the nun never to call her at work for nothing again. When neighborhood kids harassed Tommy, Lena yelled at them and told them to leave. She took in lost children, broke up street fights, and did sewing for friends even from her bed in her final months.

Care without sentimentality. The aunt's description—the sweetest person who didn't put up with nonsense—captures the balance. Lena was kind but not passive. She watched out for everyone in the neighborhood.

Pragmatism. The family was poor—they lived in an unheated railroad apartment on East Eighty-Second Street—but the mother and aunt resist the label “poor” because they always had food. Lena took outside sewing jobs to bring in money. This is a woman who made do, who provided, who did not complain.

Chronological Arc

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Lena's life, as reconstructed in the chapter, follows a clear arc:

1. Childhood in Italy. Lena is born in Italy, the daughter of a woman whose husband has emigrated to America.

2. The crossing. At about seven, Lena's mother learns her husband is living with another woman, sells the farm, and sails with her two children to New York. On arrival, she expels the mistress.

3. First marriage and divorce. Lena marries young. She leaves her first husband because of physical abuse—a scandal in the 1930s.

4. Second marriage. She marries the narrator's grandfather, a widower working as an icebox man who had two children being raised by his deceased wife's parents. After the marriage, the in-laws refuse to return the children; a custody hearing rules against him.

5. Raising her daughters. Lena and her husband raise Felicia and Santa in an unheated railroad apartment on East Eighty-Second Street. The girls attend Catholic school. Lena works outside sewing jobs.

6. The confrontation with Sister Letitia. Lena defends her daughter against an unfair punishment.

7. Defending Tommy. In the early 1950s, Lena protects a gay neighbor from harassment.

8. Final months and death. Lena does sewing for friends from her bed in the last months of her life. She dies two weeks before the narrator is born.

Relationships

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With her mother. The relationship is implied rather than described. Lena's mother is the woman who grabbed her two children by the hand and crossed the ocean. The narrator imagines his great-grandmother's desperation—sailing toward nothing certain except an unfaithful husband. Lena inherits her mother's fighting spirit.

With her first husband. The marriage is defined by abuse and Lena's decision to leave. The narrator notes the enormity of this choice: everything around her was built to tell her she must stay, and she didn't.

With her second husband. The grandfather is a shadowy figure in the chapter. He worked as an icebox man, lost custody of his children, and died the year before Lena. The marriage itself is not described in detail, but it produced the narrator's mother and aunt.

With her stepchildren. Lena's second husband's children were taken from him by his in-laws, who did not want them raised by a divorced woman. Lena was considered less than and unfit. The children were never reunited with their father. The narrator's mother saw her half-brother only once, glimpsed through a cracked door.

With her daughters. Lena is remembered by her daughters with love and respect. The mother's inability to talk about her for years suggests both grief and the depth of the bond. The aunt's stories are affectionate and detailed.

With Tommy. The defense of Tommy is the most significant relationship for the narrator's own identity. Lena liked Tommy—a simple statement that carries enormous weight. She would not tolerate him being treated badly.

With the narrator. Lena never meets the narrator. But he imagines her, wonders if she would have liked him, and believes she would have accepted and fought for him. He feels her strength as a gift passed between them as she was exiting this world and he was entering it.

Key Decisions and Consequences

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The decision to leave her abusive husband. This is the pivotal choice of Lena's life. The consequence is scandal and social judgment—her second husband's in-laws refuse to let his children be raised by her. But the consequence is also freedom and a second marriage that produces the narrator's mother and aunt.

The decision to marry the widower. This marriage brings Lena into a family with complicated custody dynamics. The grandfather loses his children, and the half-brothers are lost to the family. The narrator's mother sees her half-brother only once in her life.

The decision to confront Sister Letitia. Lena's defense of her daughter at the Catholic school is a small act with large symbolic weight. It establishes that Lena will not let authority figures mistreat her children.

The decision to defend Tommy. This is the decision that resonates most for the narrator. Lena's defense of a gay man in the early 1950s—a time of very little tolerance—becomes, for the narrator, the most concrete message he has ever gotten from his grandmother. It tells him she would have accepted him.

Theme and Symbol Connections

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Lena connects to several of the memoir's central themes:

The search for belonging and connection. Lena's immigration story is a search for home—a family crossing an ocean to claim what was promised. Her defense of Tommy is a defense of someone else's right to belong. The narrator's own search for belonging is mirrored in his grandmother's story.

The performance of identity. Lena's divorce is a refusal to perform the role of the dutiful wife. Her confrontation with Sister Letitia is a refusal to perform deference. The narrator, who spends much of the memoir performing various identities (the straight boy, the perfect guest, the troubled teen), finds in Lena a model of someone who refused to perform.

Coming out and self-acceptance. The Tommy story is the clearest connection. The narrator hopes the story happened exactly as his aunt says it did because it feels like proof that his grandmother would have accepted him. Lena's acceptance of Tommy becomes a proxy for the acceptance the narrator seeks.

Nostalgia and the passage of time. The entire chapter is an act of nostalgia—recovering a lost grandmother through memory. The narrator's mother's grief, the aunt's stories, the narrator's own imagination: all are ways of holding onto someone who died before he was born.

Popular culture as refuge and self-discovery. This theme is less directly connected to Lena, but the narrator's love of television and movies is part of the same impulse that leads him to seek out his grandmother's story—a desire to escape the present and find meaning in the past.

Five Questions and Answers

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1. Why did Lena's mother bring her to America?

Lena's mother learned that her husband, who had emigrated to America, was living with another woman. She sold their farm, sailed to New York with her two children, and expelled the mistress. Lena was about seven years old at the time.

2. Why was Lena's first marriage a scandal?

Lena divorced her first husband because he physically abused her. In the 1930s, divorce was incredibly taboo, almost unheard of, for Italian-Americans. The narrator notes that everything around her was built to tell her she must stay—and she left anyway.

3. What happened to Lena's second husband's children?

The grandfather was a widower whose two children were being raised by his deceased wife's parents. After he married Lena, the in-laws refused to return the children, not wanting them raised by a divorced woman. A custody hearing ruled against him. The narrator's mother saw her half-brother only once, through a cracked door, when a son refused to let them in.

4. How did Lena defend Tommy?

Tommy was a gay man who wore makeup and cared for his elderly aunt. When neighborhood kids harassed him and threatened to beat him up, Lena yelled at them and told them to leave. She liked Tommy and would not tolerate him being treated badly.

5. What does Lena's story mean to the narrator?

The narrator believes Lena would have accepted him as a gay man. The Tommy story feels like the most concrete message he has ever gotten from his grandmother—proof that she would have fought for him and celebrated him. He feels her strength as a gift passed between them as she died and he was born.

For more on the memoir's themes, see popular culture as refuge and self-discovery, the performance of identity, the search for belonging and connection, coming out and self-acceptance, and nostalgia and the passage of time. Return to the book overview or explore the ending explained and questions and answers.