“Schaeffer’s greatest feat is transforming Calvin from a rotten little kid into a character so compelling that I felt as if he were pulling me through the pages . . . On a par with Calvin’s metamorphosis is Schaeffer’s near-perfect touch with the details of religion. Somehow he manages to integrate the most serious issues of religious practice, even explaining their relevance to a less-informed reader, without losing the flow of the novel.”

—St. Petersburg Times

“Irreverent, amusing . . . Schaeffer’s slapstick jokes and often tender evocations of youth make for an uneasy but entertaining cross between Portnoys Complaint and TV’s The Wonder Years”

—Publishers Weekly

Also by Frank Schaeffer

THE CALVIN BECKER TRILOGY

Portofino

Zermatt

Saving Grandma

NON-FICTION

Keeping Faith

A Father-Son Story About Love
and the United States Marine Corps

Faith of Our Sons

A Father’s Wartime Diary

Portofino

FRANK SCHAEFFER

CARROLL & GRAF PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK

Copyright Page

PORTOFINO

Carroll & Graf Publishers
An Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group Inc.

Copyright © 1992 by Frank Schaeffer

First Carroll & Graf edition 2004

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

We have made every effort to trace copyright holders, but if errors or omissions are brought to our attention we shall be pleased to publish corrections in future editions of this book.

All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-0-7867-1375-2
eBook ISBN: 9780786740338

Printed in the United States of America
Distributed by Publishers Group West

To my wife Regina

Author’s Note:

Portofino, Zermatt, and Saving Grandma are all about the Becker family and their adventures, as narrated by Calvin Dort Becker. Each novel is a stand-alone work, though taken together they form a trilogy.

Frank Schaeffer, June 4, 2004

Portofino

1962

Chapter 1

THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN was always turquoise. “A turquoise bracelet studded with diamonds,” my sister Janet said. I had two sisters. Janet, my angry fifteen-year-old sister, and Rachael, who was meek and thirteen.

Janet liked to clasp her hands in front of her and say things poetically, like about the Mediterranean being a bracelet. That afternoon the bracelet was framed between the dingy apartment buildings that line the railroad tracks behind the city of Genoa, Italy. Genoa was the place you changed trains in on the way to Santa Margherita.