A Silence Shared by Lalla Romano (tr. Brian Robert Moore)

Over the past few years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Italian women writers from the mid-20^th century, largely focusing on Natalia Ginzburg, whose work I very much enjoy. (Her essay collection The Little Virtues is easily one of my standout reads of the year so far.) Other female writers are also being rediscovered, from Alba de Cespedes and Anna Maria Ortese to Elsa Morante and Iris Origo. (Whilst Origo wasn’t born in Italy, she lived there for many years, documenting the events of WW2 from her home in Val d’Orcia, Tuscany.)

Now we can add the Italian writer, poet and artist Lalla Romano to that list, courtesy of this beautiful reissue of her 1957 novella A Silence Shared – freshly translated by Brian Robert Moore and recently published by Pushkin Press. It’s a gorgeous, enigmatic novella, like an ode to stillness and silence, all expressed in Romano’s subtle, poetic prose.

The story takes place deep in the midst of the Italian countryside during the autumn and winter months of 1943. Giulia, the young woman who narrates the novel, has left her home in Turin to stay with two of her mother’s elderly cousins, leaving behind her husband, Stefano, who works in the city. With bombings continuing across Northern and Central Italy, the cousins’ rural home is a place of relative safety, particularly given the tense atmosphere in Turin.

Shortly after her arrival, Giulia becomes intrigued by an enigmatic married couple also sheltering in the hills – the lively, spontaneous Ada and her distant, pre-occupied husband, Paolo. The pair have been driven into hiding at the secluded Tetto Murato (which literally means ‘walled roof’) mostly due to Paolo’s activities in the resistance – a situation compounded by severe asthma, which frequently lays him low.

I had heard people talk about them [Paolo and Ada], the way locals talk about out-of-towners: as something suspicious, if not outright scandalous.

He, a teacher and intellectual, sent to that isolated town near the border as if in a kind of exile; she, proud, aristocratic. No one knew how they managed to get by: they didn’t give lessons, and yet no one could say they had racked up any debts. Worst of all was that they “didn’t go to church”. (p. 15)

As the weeks slip by, Giulia is increasingly drawn to Paolo and Ada at Tetto Murato, walking there and back each day to spend time in the couple’s orbit while helping with Paolo’s care. A sense of connection swiftly develops between Giulia and Paolo, a kind of affinity or unspoken bond which flourishes in their shared silences, enhancing the rarefied atmosphere in the house. Similarly, when Stefano pays the occasional visit to Giulia, he is often drawn to Ada – not in a sexual way but in a spiritual sense, like two kindred spirits coming together as one.

There is something dreamlike and hypnotic about this novel, as if the reader is viewing every development through a light, gauzy curtain, rendering everything with a hazy, shimmering glow. Romano excels in creating an intimate, emotionally charged atmosphere, highlighting the developing relationships between Giulia, Paolo and Ada – not forgetting Stefano during his occasional visits to the house.

The stove at the foot of the bed emitted heat, but the siege of the night and the cold was pressing up against the small windows. I lay motionless, the fur weighing lightly and pleasantly on my body, in the warmth and in the faint scent of that bed that wasn’t my own. “Their” bed. I was a bit perturbed, but happy, too. It had been easy: with Ada, everything was easy. (p. 77)

This is a novel in which silence envelops everything from the house at Tetto Murato to the occupants themselves. Very little happens in terms of narrative plot; instead, Romana is more interested in evoking atmosphere and mood, painting her novel in scenes where so much remains unsaid. Moreover, there is an unspoken air of disapproval in the cousins’ attitude to Giulia’s closeness to Paola and Ada – another kind of silence that permeates the book. 

The need for concealment offers the central characters the possibility of deep intimacy – an atmosphere that encourages intense, unspoken emotions to flow between them, transcending marital bonds and fidelities – with Paolo’s illness adding another layer of intimacy and intensity to an already clandestine situation.

I would give my all, straining to make out what Paolo said when, in the drowsy state caused by the injections, a sudden start would jolt through him. I spoke to him for hours during the night: it was my task, and—in the dark and in the silence—communication between the two of us became natural, profound. (p. 106) 

Romano was a painter before she became a writer, and her gift for visual imagery plays a significant part in this book. In conveying the mood at Tetto Murato, the author draws on all the senses, from the starlight gracing the landscape at night to the aromas of smoke, grain and baked apples wafting through the house. As Giulia, Ada and Paola lie in bed together, snuggling under the fur blanket for warmth, we can feel the heat from the fire, sense the sharp frost outside, hear the crunch of snow underfoot.

I held my breath for a second when arriving at Tetto Murato. The silence enveloped—more compact than the snow—the semi-buried houses, and the great black pine tree, in its infinite melancholy, seemed simultaneously to point to and to hide a secret. (p. 130)

The sense of place is also beautifully evoked, particularly the countryside that Giulia cuts through on her daily pilgrimages to Tetto Murato. The simple, untamed beauty of the landscape – a beauty ‘born out of poverty’ – is characterised by fields of mulberry trees and patches of wild brambles, highlighting the contrast with the tense atmosphere in town.

Beyond town, the riverbanks—the high, woody stretches along the river—flourished, thick and blooming; and so much beauty seemed like madness, now that the sky was cut through daily by flocks of migrating birds and the town was becoming more and more withdrawn, taciturn, patrolled up and down by the frightening ranks of the Muti brigade. (p. 37)

As winter gives way to spring, other changes permeate the air – a sense of wistfulness or regret as the protagonists’ time together may come to a natural end.

Romano has written a haunting, dreamlike novel here, like a love letter to human connection in a time of great uncertainty, heightened by the need to shelter from the turmoil of war. (My thanks to the publishers and the Independent Alliance for kindly providing a review copy.)

Voyager by Nona Fernández (tr. Natasha Wimmer)

Last year I read and loved Space Invaders, a dazzling, shapeshifting novella by the Chilean writer and actress Nona Fernández. These qualities are also very much in evidence here in the author’s captivating memoir, Voyager, Constellations of Memory, a beguiling meditation on memory, family history, neurology and astronomy. This exquisitely-written book also weaves together elements of the personal with the political, delving into the dark heart of Chilean history – specifically the atrocities perpetuated under General Pinochet’s dictatorship in the early 1970s. It’s a tricky book to describe, partly because it’s so richly textured and imagined, but hopefully I can give you a flavour of it here. (I should also say upfront that I simply adored this book. It’s a luminous one-sitting read, full of fascinating observations, connections and ideas; another dazzling gem from Daunt Books, a publisher that consistently delivers the goods.)

When Fernandez’s mother experiences a series of brief blackouts, Nona takes her to the hospital for various tests, including a visualisation of the brain’s activity. As Fernandez watches the network of neurons lighting up on the screen, she is reminded of a starscape, an imaginary constellation of stars twinkling away in the sky…

I remember the electrical charges I saw in her neurological exam. Those constellations of clustered memories. And I muse, in a rather obvious way, that the parentheses in her brain are like the black holes of the cosmos. Dark, enigmatic spaces packed with hidden information. I have only the most basic understanding of them. (p. 87)

In some respects, these parentheses (i.e. the gaps in memory her mother experiences after she has briefly lost consciousness) can be likened to black holes. However, just because her mother can’t remember the details of these blackouts, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there.

Moreover, Fernandez also recalls a story from childhood, a conversation she had with her mother about the stars in the sky, their origins and meaning. Irrespective of whether we notice them or not, the stars are always present, reminding us of their existence, transmitting messages and signals night after night after night.

When I was very little and I asked my mother about the stars, she responded with a crazy theory. Up in the night sky, she said, there were little people who were trying to talk to us with mirrors. In a kind of Morse code with flashes of light conveying messages. For a long time I believed her and I assumed that the messages sent by the little people in the sky were to say hello and remind us of their presence despite the distance and the darkness. Hello, here we are, we’re the little people, don’t forget us. (p. 44)

Using these two experiences as a springboard, Fernandez weaves a beautiful, effortlessly fluid meditation, establishing deep and meaningful connections between the constellations in the sky, our constellations of memories – both personal and political – astrology, motherhood, identity and more. Pivotal here are the author’s own personal experiences of stargazing in Chile’s Atacama Desert, one of the world’s leading areas for observing the night sky. It’s a location steeped in Chile’s history, some of it deeply troubling. In October 1973, shortly after Pinochet swept to power, twenty-six people were executed there by the dictator’s ‘Caravan of Death’ squad.

Around the same time as her mother’s neurological investigations, Fernandez is invited to sign an Amnesty International petition calling for twenty-six stars in a particular constellation to be renamed (one for each victim of the 1973 atrocity) as a permanent act of remembrance. Following her support of this endeavour, Fernandez agrees to become a godmother to one of the stars, Star HD89353, in memoriam of Mario Argüelles Toro.

In one of the most moving vignettes in the book, Fernandez visits Mario’s widow, Violeta, at her home in Calama. She hears how Violeta searched the Atacama Desert, day in day out for twenty years following her husband’s death, desperately seeking elements of his remains – a bone, a scrap of clothing, a belonging of any sort – something she could bury as a way of saying goodbye. These visits culminate in Fernandez joining Violeta and the other bereaved families on a pilgrimage to the desert, a deeply affecting act of remembrance that hopefully brings a modicum of solace to all involved.

If I think about the story of Mario Argüelles and his twenty-five fellow victims executed in the desert, if I think about all the people of Calama, their city, who have no information about them, I’m visited again by the image of those menacing black holes. Twenty-six lives and twenty-six deaths and twenty-six bodies hidden in some corner of history, in a blind spot where there’s nothing left to be found anymore. (p. 88)

In some ways, Mario’s story is a powerful reminder of the importance of individual acts of defiance and remembrance – a way of focusing on an individual death within the cumulative horror of Pinochet’s actions. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that each of these losses represents a unique person, an individual robbed of their life – each leaving behind a family destroyed by enduring grief.

Alongside these elements, Fernandez also touches on her own family history – most notably, stories of her mother and grandmother and their shared determination to vote ‘No’ in the 1988 national plebiscite, a crucial referendum on Chile’s political direction. A victory for the ‘Yes’ campaign would have strengthened Pinochet’s control over the country at the time, but thankfully the ‘No’ campaign prevailed by a comfortable margin, ushering in a more democratic future for the country.

Fernandez continues to revisit these themes throughout the book, weaving together a beguiling network of connections, alighting on personal family memories, her mother’s neurological condition, the mysteries hidden in the cosmos and episodes from Chile’s troubled history. By doing so, she seems to be highlighting the importance of the past to our present and future direction. In short, light from the past can illuminate our current situation. Only by remembering and preserving these stories, by learning from our history and previous experiences, can we hope to move forward, shaping the decisions and constellations of the future as positively as possible.

Voyager is published in the UK by Daunt Books; my thanks to the publishers for kindly providing a review copy. Interested readers should also check out Patricio Guzmán’s stunning documentary on the Atacama Desert, Nostalgia for the Light, which explores similar themes – the cinematography is dazzling.

Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel (tr. Rosalind Harvey)

Still Born, the fourth novel by the critically-acclaimed Mexican writer Guadalupe Nettel, is an intriguing book. Recently longlisted for the International Booker Prize, the novel explores various aspects of motherhood – specifically, ambivalence towards the prospect of becoming a mother and what can happen when those feelings change – in candid, sensitive ways.

The novel takes as its focus two close friends, Laura (who acts as narrator) and Alina, both in their early to mid-thirties. Having first met in their twenties while studying/working in Paris, the two women now find themselves back in their home country of Mexico for different reasons. Both women had initially resisted motherhood as it would have restricted their career prospects and freedoms, but now the situation has changed. Alina and her husband, Aurelio, have been trying to have a baby for the past year without success and are about to embark on fertility treatment in the hope of a positive result. While at first, Laura is unsettled by the prospect of her friend joining the ranks of ‘zombie-like’ mothers ‘with no life of their own’, she eventually comes around to the idea, especially when Alina finally becomes pregnant.

Nettel touches on the wide range of responses to pregnancy and motherhood here, particularly among women. It’s a remarkably honest and nuanced treatment of the subject, which is refreshing to see.

A pregnancy changes many things indeed, including the connections we have with people: the friends who had decided not to have children now looked at her [Alina] differently, as if she were the carrier of a transmittable disease. The ones who did want them and could see their time running out, meanwhile, displayed towards her an admiration tinged with envy. I have no idea if any of them, aside from me, felt genuinely happy for her. (p. 35)

Initially, everything seems to be progressing well with Alina’s pregnancy; but at seven months, a scan reveals that the unborn baby’s brain is severely undeveloped, and the couple must come to terms with the pronouncement that their child, already named Inés, will die when separated from its mother at birth. In short, Inés’ brain will be incapable of carrying out all the normal autonomous bodily functions required to sustain life; the only thing keeping her alive right now is Alina. Moreover, Alina is strongly advised to carry the baby to term to maximise her chances of a successful pregnancy in the future, despite the unwavering predictions that Inés will die at birth.

There is a word to describe someone who loses their spouse, and a word for children who are left without parents. There is no word, however, for a parent who loses their child. Unlike previous centuries in which child mortality was very high, it’s not normal for this to occur in our time. It is something so feared, so unacceptable, that we have chosen not to name it. (p. 68)

However, when Inés is born, she defies the doctors’ expectations by surviving, albeit with severe brain damage, limiting her future development and ability to live an independent life. The baby’s condition is so rare that no one can predict how long she will live. Consequently, Alina and Aurelio must face the prospect of never knowing whether each day will be their baby’s last. It’s a situation that accentuates just how tenuous and fragile our lives can be, how any of us could die at any moment, in an accident or by a freak of nature. Inevitably, the situation triggers all sorts of emotions in the couple, especially Alina. She feels angry towards the doctors who told her to prepare for her baby’s death – the same doctors who now insist that Inés cannot see or hear anything, even though she seems to respond to various sounds and environments in the couple’s home.

Alongside Alina’s story, the novel also follows Laura as she becomes increasingly involved with her neighbours – a depressed single mother, Doris, and her troublesome son, Nicolás, whose outbursts can be heard through the paper-thin walls. Although Laura has undergone a sterilisation procedure to protect herself from becoming pregnant, she finds herself acting as a kind of substitute mother to Nicolás when his mother is too ill to provide proper care.

There is a lot going on in this novel (possibly too much?), with Nettel adding other reflections on motherhood through the somewhat strained relationship between Laura and her mother.

We daughters have a tendency to see in our mother’s mistakes the source of all our problems, and our mothers tend to consider our defects as proof of a possible failure. So as to avoid conflict, I have, over the past few years, opted to not completely reveal what I am thinking, to hide my fondnesses and fears, becoming as unreadable as possible to escape the knife-edge of her comments… (p. 150)

Moreover, Alina feels somewhat undermined in her role as Inés’ mother when she hires an uber-efficient nanny, Marlene, who becomes very attached to the little girl, experiencing all the joys of seeing her progress and develop without the burden of having long-term responsibility for her care.

There’s also an interesting parallel between a family of pigeons nesting on the balcony of Laura’s flat and the other aspects of motherhood Nettel explores in the novel. Like Alina and Aurelio, the pigeons must deal with an unexpected tragedy when one of the eggs they have been nurturing disappears from their nest.

They were perched on the nest, cooing at a volume that sounded louder than usual. Were they pining for the presence of the other egg? Did they experience its disappearance as a painful loss? Or was it something for which pigeons and other creatures are prepared, while human beings simply cannot tolerate it? (p. 70)

Once again, Nettel adds another dimension to the narrative here, touching on themes of brood parasitism, a practice whereby birds such as cuckoos pass the responsibility for raising their offspring onto others by laying their eggs in another bird’s nest.

While I really liked the first half of this novel and Nettel’s cool, quietly compelling prose style throughout, the second half seemed somewhat less focused and clear to me. Moreover, Nettel introduces something at the halfway point that appears to be setting up a moral dilemma for Alina, offering her a possible way out if coping with baby Inés proves too much; however, this element remains dormant for the remainder of the book. Still, the author is to be commended for tackling some difficult aspects of motherhood with tenderness, openness and sensitivity. It’s an interesting exploration of how our attitudes to having children can change over time, what happens when a pregnancy throws up unexpected, life-threatening challenges, and how we manage to cope (or not) with the uncertainty this presents.

I’ll finish with a final quote which captures something of the novel’s essence for me.

‘…We have the children that we have, not the ones we imagined we’d have, or the ones we’d have liked, and they’re the ones we end up having to contend with.’ (p. 189)

Still Born is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions; my thanks to the publishers and the Independent Alliance for kindly providing a reading copy.

Mothers in Literature – a few favourites from the shelves

With Mother’s Day coming up on Sunday, I thought it would be fun to put together a post on some of my favourite mothers in literature. Naturally, several classics spring to mind, such as Mrs Bennet from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Marmee March from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, but I’ve tried to go for more unusual choices, all highly recommended and reviewed on this site.

Realisations and Revelations – mothers trying to do their best

Territory of Light by Yūko Tsushima (tr. Geraldine Harcourt)

I loved this. A beautiful, dreamlike novella shot through with a strong sense of isolation that permeates the mind. Originally published as a series of short stories, Tsushima’s novella focuses on a year in the life of a young mother recently separated from her somewhat ambivalent husband. There’s a sense of intimacy and honesty in the portrayal of the narrator’s feelings, something that adds to the undoubted power of the book. Themes of isolation, alienation and disassociation are heightened by the somewhat ghostly nature of the setting – an apartment located in a commercial building where the mother and child are the sole occupants at night. Strangely unsettling in tone yet thoroughly compelling.

Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro (tr. Frances Riddle)

Every now and again, a book comes along that catches the reader off-guard with its impact and memorability. Elena Knows feels like that kind of novel – an excellent example of how the investigation into a potential crime can be used as a vehicle in fiction to explore pressing societal issues. When Elena’s daughter, Rita, is found dead, the official investigations deliver a verdict of suicide, and the case is promptly closed by the police. Elena, however, refuses to believe the authorities’ ruling based on her knowledge of Rita’s beliefs, so she embarks on an investigation of her own with shocking results…In short, the book is a powerful exploration of various aspects of control over women’s bodies, particularly the extent to which women are in control (or not) of their own bodies in a predominantly Catholic society. It’s also a striking portrayal of a mother determined to discover the truth.

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes (tr. Ann Goldstein)

Published in Italy in 1952 and freshly translated by Ann Goldstein, Forbidden Notebook is a remarkable rediscovery, a candid, exquisitely-written confessional from an evocative feminist voice. The novel is narrated by forty-three-year-old Valeria Cossati, who documents her inner thoughts in a secret notebook with great candour and clarity, laying bare the nature of her world with all its preoccupations. The act of writing becomes an outlet for Valeria’s frustrations with her family, her husband Michele and their two grown-up children, both living at home. Through the acting of writing the journal, Valeria learns more about herself, experiencing a gradual reawakening of her own yearnings and desires. In short, this is a wonderfully transgressive exploration of a woman’s right to her own existence in the face of competing demands. (It could also neatly fit into my next category as the relationship between Valeria and her daughter, Mirella, is particularly fraught!)

Fractured Mother-Daughter Relationships

Iza’s Ballad by Magda Szabó (Georges Szirtes)

Set in Hungary in the early 1960s, Iza’s Ballad is a heartbreaking portrayal of the emotional gulf between a mother and her daughter, two women with radically different outlooks on life. When her father dies, Iza decides to bring her elderly mother, Ettie, to live with her in Budapest. While Ettie is grateful to her daughter for this gesture, she struggles to adapt to modern life in the city, especially without her familiar possessions and the memories they represent. This is a novel of many contrasts; the chasm between the different generations; the traditional vs the new; the rural vs the urban; and the generous vs the self-centred. Szabó digs deep into the damage we inflict on those closest to us – often unintentionally but inhumanely nonetheless.

My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley

A brilliantly observed, lacerating portrayal of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship that really gets under the skin. Riley’s sixth novel is a deeply uncomfortable read, veering between the desperately sad and the excruciatingly funny; and yet, like a car crash unfolding before our eyes, it’s hard to look away. The novel is narrated by Bridget, who is difficult to get a handle on, other than what she tells us about her parents, Helen (aka ‘Hen’) and Lee. This fascinating character study captures the bitterness, pain and irritation of a toxic mother-daughter relationship with sharpness and precision. The dialogue is pitch-perfect, some of the best I’ve read in recent years, especially when illustrating character traits – a truly uncomfortable read for all the right reasons.  

(Needy or neglectful mothers also feature strongly in Richard Yates’ best novels e.g. The Easter Parade and Hanne Ørstavik’s piercing novella Love tr. Martin Aitken.)

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Perhaps the quintessential ‘bad mother’ novel, Oranges is a semi-autobiographical narrative, drawing on Winterson’s relationship with her own mother, and what a fractious relationship it is! Jeanette’s adoptive mother is heavily involved, obsessed even, with the local Pentecostal church, grooming young Jeanette for a future as a church missionary. In one sense, Oranges is a coming-of-age novel, the story of a young girl trying to find her place in a world when she seems ‘different’ to many of her peers – different in terms of her religious upbringing and to some extent her sexuality. But the novel also explores how difficult it is for Jeanette to live up to her mother’s expectations, especially when these demands are so extreme. 

Motherwell: A Girlhood by Deborah Orr

Ostensibly a memoir exploring Orr’s childhood – particularly the fractured relationship between Deborah and her mother, Win, a formidable woman who holds the reins of power within the family’s household. Moreover, this powerful book also gives readers a searing insight into a key period of Scotland’s social history, successfully conveying the devastating impact of the steel industry’s demise – especially on Motherwell (where Orr grew up) and the surrounding community. This is a humane, beautifully-written book on how our early experiences and the communities we live in can shape us, prompting us to strive for something better in the years that follow.

Missing or Absent Mothers

On Chapel Sands by Laura Cumming

This absorbing memoir revolves around the story of Cumming’s mother, Betty Elston – more specifically, her disappearance as a young child, snatched away from the beach at Chapel St Leonards in 1929. What I love about this book is the way Cumming uses her skills as an art critic to shed new light on the unanswered questions surrounding her mother’s childhood. More specifically, the importance of images, details, perspective and context, alongside hard evidence and facts. A remarkable story exquisitely conveyed in a thoughtful, elegant style.

Foster by Claire Keegan

A beautiful novella in which a young girl blossoms while in the care of distant relatives, effectively acting as foster parents for the summer. As the story opens, a young girl from Clonegal in Ireland’s County Carlow is being driven to Wexford by her father. There she will stay with relatives, an aunt and uncle she doesn’t know, with no mention of a return date or the nature of the arrangement. The girl’s mother is expecting a baby, and with a large family to support, the couple has chosen to take the girl to Wexford to ease the burden at home. Keegan’s sublime novella shows how this shy girl comes to life under the care of her new family through a story exploring kindness, compassion, nurturing and acceptance from a child’s point of view. A truly gorgeous book.

Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au

At first sight, the story being conveyed in Cold Enough for Snow seems relatively straightforward – a mother and her adult daughter reconnect to spend some time together in Japan. Nevertheless, this narrative is wonderfully slippery – cool and clear on the surface, yet harbouring fascinating hidden depths within, a combination that gives the book a spectral, enigmatic quality, cutting deep into the soul. Au excels in conveying the ambiguous nature of memory, how our perceptions of events can evolve over time – sometimes fading to a feeling or impression, other times morphing into something else entirely, altered perhaps by our own wishes and desires. A haunting, meditative novella from a writer to watch.

Different Facets of Motherhood

Intimacies by Lucy Caldwell

A luminous collection of eleven stories about motherhood – mostly featuring young mothers with babies and/or toddlers, with a few focusing on pregnancy and mothers to be. Caldwell writes so insightfully about the fears young mothers experience when caring for small children. With a rare blend of honesty and compassion, she shows us those heart-stopping moments of anxiety that ambush her protagonists as they go about their days. Moreover, Caldwell captures an intensity in the characters’ emotions through her stories, a depth of feeling that seems utterly authentic and true. By zooming in on her protagonists’ hopes, fears, preoccupations and desires, Caldwell has found the universal in the personal, offering stories that will resonate with many of us, irrespective of our personal circumstances.

Dandelions by Thea Lenarduzzi

(I’m bending the rules slightly with this one as it focuses on a grandmother, but I couldn’t bear to leave it out!)

The Italian-born editor and writer Thea Lenarduzzi has given us a gorgeous book here – a meditative blend of family memoir, political and socioeconomic history, and personal reflections on migration between Italy and the UK. Partly crafted from discussions between Thea and her paternal grandmother, Dirce, the book spans four generations of Lenarduzzi’s family, moving backwards and forwards in time – and between Italy and England – threading together various stories and vignettes that span the 20^th century. In doing so, a multilayered portrayal of Thea’s family emerges, placed in the context of Italy’s sociopolitical history and economic challenges. A book I adored – both for its themes and the sheer beauty of Lenarduzzi’s prose. (Hadley Freeman’s thoroughly absorbing memoir, House of Glass, is in a very similar vein, also highly recommended indeed! And for novels featuring motherhood across three generations of women, see Audrey Magee brilliant novel The Colony and Maria Judite de Carvalho’s quietly devastating Empty Wardrobes, tr. Margaret Jull Costa.)

Do let me know what you think of my choices, along with any favourites of your own, in the comments below.

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes (tr. Ann Goldstein)

Published in Italy in 1952 and freshly translated here by Ann Goldstein, Forbidden Notebook is a remarkable rediscovered gem of Italian literature, a candid, exquisitely-written confessional from an evocative feminist voice. Its author, Alba de Céspedes, was a bestselling novelist, poet and screenwriter of Italian-Cuban heritage. The granddaughter of the first president of Cuba, de Céspedes was born and raised in Rome. While working as a journalist in the 1930s, she was politically active, lending her support to anti-fascist activities for which she was imprisoned twice. Her writing, however, seems more concerned with the inner lives of women, their deepest feelings and desires, their preoccupations and discontents – topics that remain acutely relevant to this day.

The novel is narrated by forty-three-year-old Valeria Cossati, who experiences an irresistible urge to purchase a black notebook while buying cigarettes for her husband, Michele, one Sunday morning. Although the tobacconist is not permitted to sell such items on a Sunday, he does so in response to Valeria’s pleas – and this small act of rebellion sets the novel’s subversive tone from the opening scene.

Over the next six months, Valeria documents her inner thoughts in the notebook with great candour and clarity, laying bare the nature of her world with all its preoccupations. The act of writing becomes a confessional of sorts, an outlet for Valeria’s frustrations with her family – her husband Michele, a somewhat remote but dedicated man, largely wrapped up in his own interests, which Valeria doesn’t share, and their two grown-up children, Riccardo and Mirella, both of whom live at home.

At first, Valeria writes primarily about her children and the tensions in the relationships between the generations. At nineteen, Mirella is self-assured and growing in independence. Her older boyfriend, Cantoni – a successful lawyer – buys her expensive gifts, items that Valeria could never afford for Mirella. In a desire to protect her family’s reputation, Valeria repeatedly clashes with Mirella, urging her not to stay out late or to jeopardise her studies in law to spend time with this man. In short, Valeria struggles to understand her daughter’s values and priorities, capturing her concerns in the private notebook.

Sometimes I think I’m wrong to write down everything that happens; fixed in writing, even what is, in essence, not bad seems bad. I was wrong to write about the conversation I had with Mirella when she came home late and, after talking for a long time, we separated not as mother and daughter, but as two hostile women. If I hadn’t written it, I would have forgotten about it. (pp. 46–47)

Although Michele has a steady job with the bank, money is tight within the Cossati family, leaving little room for luxuries or new clothes. To supplement her husband’s income, Valeria works in an office – a responsible job that her old-fashioned mother frowns upon and belittles. This role, alongside all her domestic chores, leaves Valeria with virtually no time to herself. She must snatch precious moments here and there, often staying up late at night to document her thoughts in secret. In short, Valeria lives in constant fear that her notebook will be discovered, exposing her innermost feelings and transgressions. This relationship between secrecy and the risk of exposure invests the novel with a sense of tension as the narrative unfolds. Nevertheless, Valeria feels compelled to maintain the notebook, almost as a way of writing herself into existence.

As the diary entries build up, we see how Valeria has been defined by the familial roles assigned to her. In the eyes of her family, Valeria is seen purely as a daughter, a wife and a mother rather than an individual in her own right – even Michele calls her ‘Mamma’, never ‘Valeria’. More galling still is the implicit assumption that Valeria will simply stay at home to look after the baby when Riccardo’s insipid fiancé, Marina, falls pregnant – with absolutely no regard for Valeria’s own wishes or ambitions. In short, her identity has been subsumed by the family’s requirements – the very thought that she might want a life or some privacy of her own is mocked by those around her, cruelly devaluing her existence outside the domestic sphere.

Gradually the focus of the notebook entries shifts, illuminating Valeria’s frustrations with Michele. There is a realisation that she and Michele are no longer the people they once were when they first met. The nature of their relationship has changed over time, with intimacy giving way to familiarity and domesticity – the regular routines of day-to-day family life.

I wonder if, now, I’d know how to talk to him, tell him the many things I think about. Things that are mine and not ours, as at the time of our marriage, and that we’ve pretended, with our silence, still are. Often, in other words, I wonder what the relations between Michele and me have been for years. (p. 201)

Moreover, Valeria begins to question her own moral values – the codes she learned from childhood and the cues signalled by her husband. There’s an acute sense of destabilisation here, a kind of loosening or unmooring of the foundations of her world.

I’ve never had my own ideas; up till now I’ve leaned on a morality learned as a child or on what my husband said. I no longer seem to know where good is and where evil is, I no longer understand those around me, and so what I thought was solid in me loses substance as well. (p. 153)

With no room of her own at home, Valeria finds sanctuary at the office, going there on Saturday afternoons as an escape from her family. During these visits, she encounters her boss, a gentle, attentive man who is equally constrained by the demands of life at home. As her relationship with this soulmate deepens in intimacy, Valeria must decide where her loyalties lie – to her family and their endless requirements or to her own yearnings and desires…

Every time I open this notebook the anxieties I felt when I began to write in it return to mind. I was assailed by regrets that poisoned my day. I was always afraid that the notebook would be discovered, even if at the time it contained nothing that could be considered shameful. But now it’s different. In it I’ve recorded the chronicle of these last days, the way in which I’ve gradually let myself be drawn into acts that I condemn and yet which, like this notebook, I seem unable to do without. (p. 189)

In short, while Valeria experiences a gradual reawakening of her own yearnings, she is also consumed by guilt – torn between a compulsion to capture her deepest desires in the notebook and a fear of undermining everything she has built with Michele and the children over the past twenty years.

So, to summarise, Forbidden Notebook is a startling, exquisitely-written confessional – an illuminating exploration of a woman’s right to her own existence in the face of competing demands. It’s also a fascinating insight into women’s lives in post-war Italian society as the traditional gender roles of the past were being challenged by the desires for freedom and modernity. One of the most compelling aspects of this novel is just how candid and honest it feels, especially for a book first published in the 1950s. There’s an emotional richness to Valeria’s diary entries, an openness and truthfulness that will likely resonate with many readers, especially fans of Natalia Ginzburg, Anna Maria Ortese and Elena Ferrante.

As you’ve probable gathered by now, I absolutely adored this one and look forward to reading more by Alba de Céspedes in the future. Luckily, Pushkin Press plan to reissue another couple of her books over the next year or two, which is excellent news for lovers of women writers. (My thanks to the publishers and the Independent Alliance for kindly providing a review copy.)

Siblings by Brigitte Reimann (tr. Lucy Jones)

Described by the publishers as ‘a ground-breaking classic of post-war German literature’, Siblings is the first of Brigitte Reimann’s novels to be translated into English, and what an interesting rediscovery it is – bold, edgy and evocative with a style all of its own! Originally published in Germany in 1963, the novel is narrated by Elisabeth Arendt, a young, idealistic painter whose steadfast beliefs in the possibility of building an egalitarian socialist future in the GDR bring her into conflict with her beloved older brother, Uli, a disillusioned engineer.

Set in 1960, before the construction of the Berlin Wall, the novel is bookended by snippets from the same conservation between the siblings, giving the narrative a circular feel. While Elisabeth is determined to fashion a fulfilling life for herself in the East, Uli feels constrained by the Party structures and ways of working, fuelling his desire to defect to the West. Following an earlier association with a radical University Professor, Uli has been left with a black mark against his name; consequently, he can only find work as a glorified draughtsman, despite his excellent qualifications as an engineer.

‘It’s like being pricked with needles every day,’ he said, ‘which is worse than being stabbed by a dagger…’ (p. 74)

In his desire to achieve creative freedom, Uli tells Elisabeth of his plans to cross the border, prompting the argument that kick-starts the book. From there, the narrative slips backwards and forwards in time, illustrating how the siblings have arrived at this point. 

With her keen eye for a painterly image, Reimann skilfully evokes the siblings’ childhood memories in a vivid, evocative style.

Blossoming cherry trees in the garden, the sandpit with our red and blue tin toys; a wall covered in ivy, and, at its foot between the broad-leafed, violet vines, we gather snail shells in the damp, black leaf mould; (pp. 4-5)

By her early twenties, Elisabeth is working at an industrial plant in the East, holding painting classes for the workers at her artist’s studio. There is some lovely descriptive writing here, capturing the stark beauty of the industrial landscapes and the workers in situ.

I worked urgently, haphazardly and unsystematically, drawn to the arc of the bridges and the prosaic curve of the cooling towers on delicately braced struts, or lured by the mellow colours under the blue September sky. I painted watercolours to catch the innocent colour of that man-made landscape; I sketched the welders on our factory floor, and the carpenters wearing velvet waistcoats over their suntanned, bare torsos, and the girls waiting and chatting on the road to the factory works, their hair tousled and skirts ballooning in sharp gusts of wind. (p. 81)

With politics playing a central role in the novel, Elisabeth soon finds herself at odds with the authorities when she criticises an older painter – a man favoured by the Party – for his outmoded depiction of activists. When the artist in question reports Elisabeth to the Stasi, she fights to defend her more modern style of creative expression – one imbued with layers of feeling. Moreover, it is rumoured that she has formed a bourgeois faction within the workers, a subversive group with the power to disrupt. Nevertheless, Elisabeth successfully defends her position, allowing her vivid artworks to speak for themselves.

Also of note is Elisabeth’s eldest brother, Konrad, whose earlier defection to the West has unsettled Elisabeth, prompting worries that this might have fuelled Uli’s decision to follow suit. Although Konrad is now relatively settled in Hamburg, his path to freedom was not an easy one, adversely affecting his marriage to Charlotte (a fellow defector) – a relationship that now feels somewhat ambivalent at best. In a particularly striking sequence, Elisabeth and her mother cross the border to meet Konrad in West Belin. Perhaps unsurprisingly, brother and sister clash over their contradictory political views and ideals, prompting Elisabeth to leave the reunion early. Only as she is waiting by the border for her mother does Elisabeth realise what a divided Germany really means.

By the novel’s conclusion, Elisabeth has enlisted the help of her boyfriend, Joachim, to persuade Uli to stay – a move likely to force a wedge between the two siblings, irrespective of Uli’s final decision. In many respects, the novel is about separations and divided loyalties – divisions that cleave open the fault lines between the East and the West, from the political and ideological to the emotional and physical.

Siblings unfolds through a jagged, fractured narrative, blending realism with flashes of modernism – an unusual style that makes this novella a highly evocative read. Reimann skilfully captures the atmosphere of Elisabeth’s world, complete with the sights, sounds and smells of life in East Germany. Interestingly, it’s not quite the grim, colourless picture one might expect.

In the evenings, Lukas came over from the neighbouring compound. He brought a few brigade people with him, and we nattered over peppermint tea and, sometimes, cheap, bitter-smelling miner’s schnapps. The window stood ajar, and the mild evening air drove in the breath of the forest, with its tangy smell of mushrooms and damp moss. We heard the deep, dark hum of the pine trees in the wind, the tootling of an accordion and, on paydays, laughter and drunken singing from the beer parlour. (pp. 35–36)

Like Elisabeth, Reimann had to balance her desires for creative expression and freedom against the constraints of the prevailing authorities. In the brief biography accompanying the Penguin Classics edition, we learn that Reimann was just thirty-nine when she died of cancer. As a passionate young writer keen to depict the realities of life in socialist East Germany, Reimann wished to live ’30 wild years instead of 70 well-behaved ones’. If Siblings is anything to go by, it appears she achieved her aim, making a case for cult status through her exciting feminist voice. 

(My thanks to the publishers for kindly providing a review copy.)    

The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg (tr. Dick Davis)

I have written before about my love of Natalia Ginzburg’s fiction – most recently, All Our Yesterdays, a rich, multilayered novel of family life spanning the duration of WW2. The Little Virtues is a volume of Ginzburg’s essays, and what a marvellous collection it is – erudite, intelligent and full of the wisdom of life. Ginzburg wrote these pieces individually between 1944 and 1962, and many were published in Italian journals before being collected here. In her characteristically lucid prose, Ginzburg writes of families and friendships, of virtues and parenthood, and of writing and relationships. I adored this beautiful, luminous collection of essays, a certainty for my end-of-year highlights even though we’re only in January – it really is that good.

In the opening essay, ‘Winter in the Abruzzi’ (1944), Ginzburg describes the time she and her family spent living in exile in a village in Abruzzo during the Second World War. It’s a poignant, melancholy piece, particularly given what happens to Natalia’s husband, Leone – a Jewish anti-fascist activist – at the hands of the authorities.

There is a kind of uniform monotony in the fate of man. Our lives unfold according to ancient, unchangeable laws, according to an invariable and ancient rhythm. Our dreams are never realised and as soon as we see them betrayed we realise that the intensest joys of our life have nothing to do with reality. No sooner do we see them betrayed than we are consumed with regret for the time when they glowed within us. And in this succession of hopes and regrets our life slips by. (pp. 12–13)

This palpable sense of melancholy is carried through to ‘Portrait of a Friend’ (1957) as Ginzburg reflects on her home city, the city of her youth, a place haunted by ‘memories and shadows’. Here she likens the area to an old friend, a poet who is now deceased.

Written in the immediate aftermath of war, ‘The Son of Man’ (1946) develops these themes further, with Ginzburg conveying how her generation — effectively the fugitives of war — will never feel safe in their homes again, where a knock in the middle of the night will almost certainly instil fear in the soul. In essence, the war has exposed a brutal truth, the darkest, ugliest sides of humanity in all their horror and cruelty. There’s a sense that the young have had to find a new strength or toughness to face the realities of life, something different from the previous generation – and hopefully the one to come. It’s a mindset that has led to a gulf between Ginzburg’s generation and that of her parents, especially in their respective approaches to parenthood.

They would like our children to play with woolly toys in pretty pink rooms with little trees and rabbits painted on the walls. They would like us to surround their infancy with veils and lies, and carefully hide the truth of things from them. But we cannot do this. We cannot do this to children whom we have woken in the middle of the night and tremblingly dressed in the darkness so that we could flee with them or hide them… (p. 83)

In ‘England: Eulogy and Lament’ (1961), the author relays her impressions of England and its people – a nation whose characteristics she documents with the directness of an outsider.

To Ginzburg, England is a civilised country, well governed and organised, serious and conventional, gloomy and dull, with occasional glimpses of beauty amid a largely homogenous environment. Many of these qualities are reflected in how the English dress – a style showing little imagination or individuality with the majority dressing alike. For women, the norm seems to be ‘beige or transparent plastic raincoats which look like shower curtains or tablecloths’, while businessmen opt for pinstripe trousers and black bowler hats. Moreover, Ginzburg is adept at capturing the demeanour of the English, how in conversation, they tend to stick to the superficialities of life (such as the weather and other banalities) to avoid causing others offence.

I couldn’t help but raise an ironic eyebrow at some Of Ginzburg’s observations about England’s principles. Oh, how this country has changed from the version portrayed here – in some areas for the better, in others for the worse!

It [England] is a country which has always shown itself ready to welcome foreigners, from very diverse communities, without I think oppressing them. (p. 36)

In ‘My Vocation’ (1949), one of my favourite pieces in this collection, Ginzburg traces her approach to writing over the arc of her creative life, from composing juvenile poems and stories in childhood to her maturity as a writer of the female experience in adulthood. It’s a fascinating piece detailing how her relationship with writing has changed through adolescence, marriage and motherhood. This beautiful, thoughtful essay also captures how the tenor of Ginzburg’s work is affected by her mood, especially the balance between her use of memory vs imagination.

When we are happy our imagination is stronger; when we are unhappy our memory works with greater vitality. Suffering makes the imagination weak and lazy; it moves, but unwillingly and heavily, with the weak movements of someone who is ill… (p.104)

Here, along with several other articles in this collection, we get the sense Ginzburg approaches her subjects obliquely or at an angle. In short, by writing about one aspect of a topic, she triggers reverberations elsewhere – like an echo amid the landscape or stone skimmed across a pool – adding a broader resonance to her insights beyond their immediate sphere or focus.

‘Human Relationships’ (1953) is another piece that follows a timeline, tracing the nature of our relationships with others from childhood and adolescence to adulthood and parenthood. Ginzburg is adept at capturing how the subtleties of our interactions change as we move through each of these phases. As our values, needs and priorities shift, so do our thoughts and emotions, frequently manifesting themselves in our attachments to others. While all stages are brilliantly conveyed, Ginzburg writes especially well about the mysteries of the adult world from a child’s point of view, highlighting the joys and anxieties that consume us at this age. In addition, her reflections on finding a life partner in adulthood are just as insightful and beautifully expressed.

After many years, only after many years, after a thick web of habits, memories and violent differences has been woven between us, we at last realise that he is, in truth, the right person for us, that we could not have put up with anyone else, that it is only from him that we can ask everything that the heart needs. (p. 141)

Central to some of these essays are our relationships with others. In ‘He and I’ (1962), Ginzburg describes the relationship with her partner in terms of their many differences, from their personalities and character traits to their interests and pursuits. It’s a beautifully written piece, tinged with touches of poignancy, especially towards the end.

Finally, in the titular essay from 1960, Ginzburg sets out her approach to parenthood, arguing that we should put more weight behind the ‘great virtues’ of life, several of which spring from instinct, and less on the ‘little virtues’, typically born from a defensive spirit of self-preservation.

As far as the education of children is concerned I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; nor shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but love for one’s neighbour and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know. (p. 151)

Moreover, she argues that by focusing too much on the little virtues, parents are in danger of fostering a sense of ‘cynicism or fear of life’ amongst their children, particularly if the great virtues are missing or downplayed.

While we might not necessarily agree with everything Ginzburg sets out in her essays, there is no denying her commitment to these principles and the reasoning behind them. There is so much wisdom and intelligence to be found in these pieces.  A fascinating collection to savour and revisit, a keeper for the bedside table as a balm for the soul.

The Little Virtues is published by Daunt Books; my thanks to the publishers for kindly providing a review copy.

My favourites from a year in reading, 2022 – the books that almost made it

This December, I found it harder than usual to settle on a manageable number of titles for my ‘Books of the Year’ lists. In truth, there were very few disappointments amongst the 100+ books I read in 2022, partly because I tend to gravitate towards the mid-20^th century for my reading. These modern classics have stood the test of time for a reason; in other words, they’re VERY GOOD!

As I looked back at this year’s reading, I found myself earmarking another eight books that didn’t quite make it into my final selections. All these books are brilliant in their own individual ways, and any of them could have easily found their way onto my ‘best of’ lists had I been compiling them on a different day. So, just in case you need yet another list of suggestions for your toppling TBR piles, here are books that almost made it. Enjoy!

Something in Disguise by Elizabeth Jane Howard (1969)

Back in October 2021, the Backlisted team covered Elizabeth Jane Howard’s 1969 novel Something in Disguise on their Halloween episode of the podcast. It’s a book I had read before, with somewhat mixed feelings. However, Andrew Male and Laura Varnam’s impassioned case for it being a rather sly, perceptive novel about the horrors of domestic life prompted me to revisit it with a fresh pair of eyes. Naturally, they were right! (How could they not be?) On my second reading, I found it much more chilling from the start, partly because I already knew just how painfully the story would play out for some of the key characters involved…The less said about the plot the better; just cut to the book itself.

Gigli, One of Us by Irmgard Keun (1931, (tr. Geoff Wilkes, 2013)

Irmgard Keun’s novellas always have something interesting to offer, and this striking portrayal of a determined young woman in Weimar-era Cologne did not disappoint. Right from the very start, I found Gilgi an utterly captivating protagonist, a strong feminist presence with a thoroughly engaging voice. In essence, the novella explores Gilgi (and the competing demands on her future direction) as she finds herself torn between two seemingly irreconcilable passions: her desire for independence and a successful career vs her love for the free-spirited Martin and the emotional fulfilment this delivers. Keun does a terrific job capturing her protagonist’s conflicted emotions, frequently in a state of flux. In many respects, this is a very progressive book. Not only is it written in a modernist style, but it also touches on several forward-thinking themes, including adoption, opportunities for women in the workplace, financial independence from men, sex outside of marriage, unwanted pregnancy, and the impact of debt on a person’s mental health. A thoroughly engaging book by one of my favourite women writers in translation.

The House of Dolls by Barbara Comyns (1989)

I have written before about my love of Barbara Comyns and the eccentric worlds she portrays in her novels – stories that combine darkly comic humour and surreal imagery with the realities of day-to-day life. The setting for this one is a Kensington boarding house during the swinging ‘60s, a time of great social change. Amy Doll, a widow in her mid-thirties, has four female boarders – all middle-aged or elderly, all divorced or widowed and cast adrift from any immediate family. Low on funds and in need of support to pay the rent, the ladies have turned their hands to a little light prostitution, fashioning a sort of ‘lounge’ for elderly gentlemen in Amy’s gold and crimson drawing room. The story follows the progress of two of these women, Berti and Evelyn, as they try to survive. Dolls is a charming, wickedly funny novel with some serious themes at its heart – how sometimes our hands are forced by unfortunate circumstances, e.g. loneliness, poverty, abandonment or adversity. An underrated Comyns that deserves to be better known.

O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker (1991)

First published in 1991 and more recently reissued by Weidenfeld & Nicholson as part of their W&N Essentials series, O Caledonia was Barker’s only novel. It’s a dazzling gem of a book, rich in a wealth of vivid imagery – clearly the product of a highly imaginative writer with a sharp eye for detail and an affinity for outsiders. Ostensibly a coming-of-age narrative, the novel blends elements from a range of literary traditions, from the Gothic novel to Classical Myths, skilfully weaving them into the fabric of the text. Andy Miller (of Backlisted fame) described it as Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle meets Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, a description that rings true. There’s also a dash of Barbara Comyns here – Barker’s prose is expressive and evocative, portraying a world that combines the sharply recognisable with the macabre and the surreal. A kaleidoscopic, jewel-like novel with a noticable poignant touch.

Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks (1953)

Every now and again, a book comes along that captivates the reader with its elegant form and glittering prose. Maud Martha is one such book, painting an evocative portrait of the titular character’s life from childhood to early adulthood. Over the course of the novella (which is written as a series of short vignettes), we follow Maud Martha through childhood in Chicago’s South Side, her early romances as a teenager, to marriage and motherhood, moving seamlessly from the early 1920s to the mid-’40s. Gwendolyn Brooks has created something remarkable here, a celebration of resilience, grace, dignity and beauty – a powerful image of black womanhood that remains highly relevant today. I loved this book for its gorgeous, poetic prose and beautiful use of imagery. A wonderful rediscovered gem courtesy of Faber Editions, a fascinating imprint that always delivers the goods.

Last Summer in the City by Gianfranco Calligarich (1970, tr. Howard Curtis, 2021)

Another wonderfully evocative read – intense, melancholic and richly cinematic, like a cross between Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and the novels of Alfred Hayes, tinged with despair. Set in Rome in the late 1960s, the novel follows Leo, a footloose writer, as he drifts around the city from one gathering to another, frequently hosted by his glamorous, generous friends. One evening, he meets Arianna, a beautiful, unpredictable, impulsive young woman who catches his eye; their meeting marks the beginning of an intense yet episodic love affair that waxes and wanes over the summer and beyond. Calligarich has given us a piercing depiction of a doomed love affair here. These flawed, damaged individuals seem unable to connect with one another, ultimately failing to realise what they could have had together until that chance has gone, frittered away like a night on the tiles. This intense, expresso shot of a novella will likely resonate with those who have loved and lost.

The Cost of Living; Early and Uncollected Stories by Mavis Gallant (1951-1971)

A precise, perceptive collection of short stories by the Canadian author, Mavis Gallant. The very best of these pieces feel like novels in miniature; the kind of tales where everything is compressed, only for the narratives to expand in the reader’s mind on further reflection. Gallant is particularly incisive on the emptiness of suburban domesticity, the type of stifling, loveless marriage depicted in Mad Men and the novels of Richard Yates. Several of her protagonists – typically women – seem lost, cast adrift and unmoored in the vast sea of uncertainty that is life. Here we have stories of terrible mothers and self-absorbed fathers, isolated wives and bewildered husbands, smart, self-reliant children who must learn to take care of themselves. A top-notch collection of stories, beautifully expressed. 

Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro (2007, tr. Frances Riddle, 2021)

Shortlisted for this year’s International Booker Prize, Elena Knows is an excellent example of how the investigation into a potential crime can be used as a vehicle in fiction to explore pressing societal issues. In short, the book is a powerful exploration of various aspects of control over women’s bodies. More specifically, the extent to which women are in control (or not) of their own bodies in a predominantly Catholic society; how religious dogma and doctrines exert pressure on women to relinquish that control to others; and what happens when the body fails us due to illness and/or disability. While that description might make it sound rather heavy, Piñeiro’s novel is anything but; it’s a hugely compelling read, full of depth and complexity. When Elena’s daughter, Rita, is found dead, the official investigations deliver a verdict of suicide, and the case is promptly closed by the police. Elena, however, refuses to believe the authorities’ ruling based on her knowledge of Rita’s beliefs, so she embarks on an investigation of her own with shocking results…

So, that’s it from me until 2023. Have a lovely New Year’s Eve, with very best wishes for the reading year ahead!

Books of the Year, 2022 – my favourite ‘older’ books from a year of reading

This year, I’m spreading my 2022 reading highlights across two posts. The first piece, on my favourite ‘recently published’ titles, is here, while this second piece puts the spotlight on the best ‘older’ books I read this year, including reissues of titles first published in the 20^th century.

These are the backlist books I loved, the books that have stayed with me, the ones I’m most likely to recommend to other readers. I’ve summarised each one in this post (in order of reading), but as before, you can find the full reviews by clicking on the appropriate links.

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

First published in 1977, at the height of Pym’s well-documented renaissance, Quartet in Autumn is a quietly poignant novel of loneliness, ageing and the passing of time – how sometimes we can feel left behind as the world changes around us. Now that I’ve read it twice, I think it might be my favourite Pym! The story follows four work colleagues in their sixties as they deal with retirement from their roles as clerical workers in a London office. While that might not sound terribly exciting as a premise, Pym brings some lovely touches of gentle humour to this bittersweet gem, showing us that life can still offer new possibilities in the autumn of our years.

A Long Way from Verona by Jane Gardam

This is a really lovely book, a thoroughly engaging coming-of-age story in the style of Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle – maybe with a hint of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle in the mix for good measure. Set in a coastal town in North Yorkshire in the early years of the Second World War, Verona is narrated by Jessica Vye, a precocious schoolgirl with an utterly captivating voice. As the novel unfolds, we follow Jessica as she tries to navigate her way through adolescence, negotiating various formative experiences along the way. What Gardam does so well here is to capture the conflicting emotions of being a teen, from the surety of knowing one’s own mind to the agony of being misunderstood and not fitting in.

Empty Wardrobes by Maria Judite de Carvalho (tr. Margaret Jull Costa)

A quietly devastating story of three generations of women, confined and subsumed by the men who surround them. There are similarities with Anita Brookner’s novels here – both thematically and stylistically – as Carvalho goes deep into the inner lives of her female protagonists, conveying them unflinchingly for the reader to see. The story centres on Dora Rosário – a widow we follow over the course of ten years – while also touching on her forthright mother-in-law, Ana, and her progressive daughter, Lisa. Carvalho explores these women in depth, showing us how they have been failed by the men who supposedly love them, with betrayal, duplicity, selfishness and abdication of responsibility all playing their respective parts.

Other People’s Worlds by William Trevor

As a writer, William Trevor has an innate ability to convey the tragedies of our lives, how individuals can be worn down by their fates and circumstances. It’s a quality that’s very much in evidence here in this tale of deception, collateral damage and a questioning of faith. The novel revolves around Francis Tyte, a thirty-something bit-part actor who sweeps into other people’s lives, leaving wreckage in his wake. As the story opens, Francis is preparing to marry Julia, a forty-seven-year-old woman who lives with her widowed mother, Mrs Anstey, in their Gloucestershire home. Mrs Anstey has some nagging doubts about Francis, which she tries to voice to her grown-up grandchildren to little avail. But with preparations for the wedding well underway, Francis’s past begins to close in on him, and the story soon unravels from there. Fans of Muriel Spark’s The Ballad of Peckham Rye might well enjoy this one!

The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins

I loved this exquisitely written novel about the slow, stealthy disintegration of a marriage. It’s a masterclass in precision and understatement, all the more impressive for its subtlety and refusal to submit to melodrama. Central to the story are the Gresham family – fifty-two-year-old Evelyn Gresham, a successful barrister of the highest rank, his beautiful wife, Imogen, and the couple’s ten-year-old son, Gavin. Imogen is a sensitive, compassionate young woman at haert, but efficient management and organisation are not her strongest suits. By contrast, Blanche Silcox – the Greshams’ nearest neighbour – is the polar opposite of Imogen. At fifty, Blanche is the living embodiment of the home counties ‘country type’, complete with her dowdy tweeds and forbidding hats. The real strength of this novel lies in the precision and clarity Jenkins brings to her portrayal of Imogen, particularly the lack of agency she feels when faced with Blanche as a competitor for Evelyn’s heart. Another quietly devastating book with the power to endure.

The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns

There are hints of Comyns’ own troubled childhood in The Vet’s Daughter, a striking coming-of-age novel with a dark, highly distinctive flavour. The story is narrated by Alice Rowlands, the titular vet’s daughter, who lives in south London with her domineering father, Euan, and her sickly mother. Euan Rowlands is a violent man, essentially bullying Alice and her mother with his sudden outbursts and demands. Alice, on the other hand, is fully alive to the world around her, sensing the danger that her father duly presents. She is an imaginative girl at heart, a quality that comes through in her childlike tone of voice. All the hallmarks of a classic Comyns novel are here: an enchanting, innocent child caught up in a dysfunctional family; memorable, vivid imagery, often with an off-kilter edge; and a simple, matter-of-fact tone of voice that belies the horrors within. A magical novel by a highly imaginative writer.

The Trouble with Happiness by Tove Ditlevsen (tr. Michael Favala Goldman)

These short stories – many of which are superb – explore the suffocating nature of family life predominantly from the female perspective, the overwhelming sense of loneliness and anxiety that many women (and children) feel due to various constraints. Here we see petty jealousies, unfulfilled desires, deliberate cruelties and the sudden realisation of deceit – all brilliantly conveyed with insight and sensitivity. What Ditlevsen does so well in this collection is to convey the sadness and pain many women and children experience at the hands of their families. Her characters have rich inner lives, irrespective of the restrictions placed on them by society and those closer to home. The writing is superb throughout, demonstrating the author’s skills with language and a flair for striking one-liners with a melancholy note.

Falling by Elizabeth Jane Howard

First published in 1999, when Elizabeth Jane Howard was nearing the twilight of her career, Falling was inspired by real-life events. When Howard was in her seventies, she fell for the charms of a con man – a seemingly attentive man who took advantage of the fact that she was unattached and vulnerable yet receptive to admiration. At first, Howard was flattered by the attention, but the affair proved devastating when her lover’s true intentions became clear. Having been badly bruised by these events, she channelled her experiences into Falling, a fictionalised version of the story that feels horribly real. It’s an excellent novel – engrossing, chilling and beautifully written, like a slow-burn thriller in the Patricia Highsmith vein.

All Our Yesterdays by Natalia Ginzburg (tr. Angus Davidson)

This rich, multilayered narrative follows two very different neighbouring Italian families during the Second World War, charting the various challenges this uncertainty presents. Ginzburg has written a truly remarkable novel here, a story of ordinary people living through extraordinary times, beautifully told with a warmth and generosity of spirit that reflects the Italian character. There are some lovely touches of dry humour throughout as the author maintains a wry sense of detachment from life’s absurdities, despite the gravity of events. It’s also clearly a novel informed by personal experiences and memories, written by a woman who lived through the turmoil of a country at war – a point that adds a genuine sense of poignancy and authenticity to the story as it unfolds.

A Helping Hand by Celia Dale

There is something deeply unnerving about a crime novel featuring an ordinary domestic setting – the type of story where sinister activities take place behind the veil of net curtains in the privacy of the protagonist’s home. The English writer Celia Dale was clearly a master of this genre, especially if her 1966 novel A Helping Hand is anything to go by. It’s an icily compelling tale of greed and deception, stealthily executed amidst carefully orchestrated conversations and endless cups of tea. In essence, the plot revolves around an outwardly respectable middle-aged couple, Maisie and Josh Evans, who take under their wing an elderly lady named Mrs Fingal. At first sight, the Evanses seem ideally placed to take care of Mrs Fingal – Maisie is a former nurse, and Josh seems equally attentive – but as the story gets going, the reader soon realises that something very underhand is afoot…

Latecomers by Anita Brookner

The English writer and art historian Anita Brookner is well known for her exquisitely-crafted novels of loneliness and isolation, typically featuring unmarried women living quiet, unfulfilling lives while waiting for their married lovers to make fleeting appearances. Latecomers – Brookner’s eighth – is somewhat different from the norm as it features two male protagonists, Hartmann and Fibich, who came to England as Jewish refugees via the Kindertransport evacuation in WW2. While the adult Hartman is optimistic, content, and at ease with his life, Fibich is anxious, melancholy and self-effacing – constantly burdened by the weight of history. Essentially, the novel follows these two men over their adult lives, tracing this unwavering friendship through their business partnership, respective marriages and the growth of their children, all set against the backdrop of the spectre of war. It’s a remarkably moving book, right up there with Brooker’s best.

Iza’s Ballad by Magda Szabó (tr. George Szirtes)

Set in Hungary in the early 1960s, Iza’s Ballad is a heartbreaking portrayal of the emotional gulf between a mother and her daughter, two women with radically different outlooks on life. When her father dies, Iza decides to bring her elderly mother, Ettie, to live with her in Budapest. While Ettie is grateful to her daughter for this gesture, she struggles to adapt to modern life in the city, especially without her familiar possessions and the memories they represent. It’s a novel of many contrasts; the chasm between the different generations; the traditional vs the new; the rural vs the urban; and the generous vs the self-centred. Szabó digs deep into the damage we inflict on those closest to us – often unintentionally but inhumanely nonetheless.

So, that’s it for my favourite books from a year of reading. Do let me know your thoughts on my choices – I’d love to hear your views.

All that remains is for me to wish you a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the year ahead – may it be filled with lots of excellent books, old and new!

Books of the year 2022, my favourites from a year of reading – recently published books

2022 has been another excellent year of reading for me. I’ve read some superb books over the past twelve months, the best of which feature in my reading highlights.

Just like last year, I’m spreading my books of the year across two posts – ‘recently published’ titles in this first piece, with older books (including reissues) to follow next week. Hopefully, some of you might find this list of contemporary favourites useful for last-minute Christmas gifts.

As many of you know, most of my reading comes from books first published in the mid-20^th century. But this year, I’ve tried to read a few more newish books – a mixture of contemporary fiction and one or two memoirs/biographies. So, my books-of-the-year posts will reflect this mix. (I’m still reading more backlisted titles than new ones, but the contemporary books I chose to read this year were very good indeed. I’m also being quite liberal with my definition of ‘recently published’ as a few of my favourites first came out in their original language 10-15 years ago.)

Anyway, enough of the preamble! Here are my favourite recently published books from a year of reading. These are the books I loved, the books that have stayed with me, the books I’m most likely to recommend to other readers. I’ve summarised each one in this post (in order of reading), but you can find my full reviews by clicking on the appropriate links.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Like many readers, I’ve been knocked sideways by Claire Keegan this year. She writes beautifully about elements of Ireland’s troubled social history with a rare combination of delicacy and precision; her ability to compress big themes into slim, jewel-like novellas is second to none. Set in small-town Ireland in the run-up to Christmas 1985, Small Things is a deeply moving story about the importance of staying true to your values – of doing right by those around you, even if it puts your family’s security and aspirations at risk. Probably the most exquisite, perfectly-formed novella I read this year – not a word wasted or out of place.

Assembly by Natasha Brown

Another very impactful, remarkably assured novella, especially for a debut. (I’m excited to see what Natasha Brown produces next!) Narrated by an unnamed black British woman working in a London-based financial firm, this striking book has much to say about many vital sociopolitical issues. Toxic masculinity, the shallowness of workplace diversity programmes, the pressure for people of colour to assimilate into a predominantly white society, and the social constructs perpetuating Britain’s damaging colonial history – they’re all explored here. I found it urgent and illuminating – a remarkable insight into how it must feel to be a young black woman in the superficially liberal sectors of society today.

These Days by Lucy Caldwell

Last year, Lucy Caldwell made my 2021 reading highlights with Intimacies, her nuanced collection of stories about motherhood, womanhood and life-changing moments. This year she’s back with These Days, an immersive portrayal of the WW2 bombing raids in the Belfast Blitz, seen through the eyes of a fictional middle-class family. What Caldwell does so well here is to make us care about her characters, ensuring we feel invested in their respective hopes and dreams, their anxieties and concerns. It’s the depth of this emotional investment that makes her portrayal of the Belfast Blitz so powerful and affecting to read. A lyrical, exquisitely-written novel from one of my favourite contemporary writers.

Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au

At first sight, the story being conveyed in Cold Enough for Snow seems relatively straightforward – a mother and her adult daughter reconnect to spend some time together in Japan. Nevertheless, this narrative is wonderfully slippery – cool and clear on the surface, yet harbouring fascinating hidden depths within, a combination that gives the book a spectral, enigmatic quality, cutting deep into the soul. Au excels in conveying the ambiguous nature of memory, how our perceptions of events can evolve over time – sometimes fading to a feeling or impression, other times morphing into something else entirely, altered perhaps by our own wishes and desires. A meditative, dreamlike novella from a writer to watch.

Foster by Claire Keegan

I make no apologies for a second mention of Claire Keegan – she really is that good! As Foster opens, a young girl from Clonegal in Ireland’s County Carlow is being driven to Wexford by her father. There she will stay with relatives, an aunt and uncle she doesn’t know, with no mention of a return date or the nature of the arrangement. The girl’s mother is expecting a baby, and with a large family to support, the couple has chosen to take the girl to Wexford to ease the burden at home. Keegan’s sublime novella shows how the girl blossoms under the care of her new family through a story that explores kindness, compassion, nurturing and acceptance from a child’s point of view.

Happening by Annie Ernaux (tr. Tanya Leslie)

I’ve read a few of Ernaux’s books over the past 18 months, and Happening is probably the pick of the bunch (with Simple Passion a very close second). In essence, it’s an account of Ernaux’s personal experiences of an illegal abortion in the early ‘60s when she was in her early twenties – her quest to secure it, what took place during the procedure and the days that followed, all expressed in the author’s trademark candid style. What makes this account so powerful is the rigorous nature of Ernaux’s approach. There are no moral judgements or pontifications here, just unflinchingly honest reflections on a topic that remains controversial today. A really important book that deserves to be widely read, even though the subject matter is so raw and challenging.

Burntcoat by Sarah Hall

I adored this haunting, beautifully-crafted story of love, trauma, and the creation of art, all set against the backdrop of a deadly global pandemic. Hall’s novel explores some powerful existential themes. How do we live with the knowledge that one day we will die? How do we prepare for the inevitable without allowing it to consume us? And what do we wish to leave behind as a legacy of our existence? Intertwined with these big questions is the role of creativity in a time of crisis – the importance of art in the wake of trauma, both individual and collective. In Burntcoat, Sarah Hall has created something vital and vivid, capturing the fragile relationship between life and death – not a ‘pandemic’ novel as such, but a story where a deadly virus plays its part.

Flâneuse by Lauren Elkin

When we hear the word ‘flâneur’, we probably think of some well-to-do chap nonchalantly wandering the streets of 19^th-century Paris, idling away his time in cafés and bars, casually watching the inhabitants of the city at work and play. Irrespective of the specific figure we have in mind, the flâneur is almost certainly a man. In this fascinating book, the critically-acclaimed writer and translator Lauren Elkin shows us another side of this subject, highlighting the existence of the female equivalent, the eponymous flâneuse. Through a captivating combination of memoir, social history and cultural studies/criticism, Elkin walks us through several examples of notable flâneuses down the years, demonstrating that the joy of traversing the city has been shared by men and women alike. A thoughtful, erudite, fascinating book, written in a style that I found thoroughly engaging.

Space Invaders by Nona Fernández (tr. Natasha Wimmer)

First published in Chile in 2013, this memorable, shapeshifting novella paints a haunting portrait of a generation of children exposed to the horrors of Pinochet’s dictatorship in the 1980s – a time of deep oppression and unease. The book focuses on a close-knit group of young adults who were at school together during the ‘80s and are now haunted by a jumble of disturbing dreams interspersed with shards of unsettling memories – suppressed during childhood but crying out to be dealt with now. Collectively, these striking fragments form a kind of literary collage, a powerful collective memory of the group’s absent classmate, Estrella, whose father was a leading figure in the State Police. Fernandez adopts a fascinating combination of form and structure for her book, using the Space Invaders game as both a framework and a metaphor for conveying the story. An impressive achievement by a talented writer – definitely someone to watch.

The Colony by Audrey Magee

Set on a small, unnamed island to the west of Ireland during the Troubles, The Colony focuses on four generations of the same family, highlighting the turmoil caused when two very different outsiders arrive for the summer. Something Magee does so brilliantly here is to move the point-of-view around from one character to another – often within the same paragraph or sentence – showing us the richness of each person’s inner life, despite the limited nature of their existence. In essence, the novel is a thought-provoking exploration of the damaging effects of colonisation – touching on issues including the acquisition of property, the demise of traditional languages and ways of living, cultural appropriation and, perhaps most importantly, who holds the balance of power in this isolated society. I found it timely, thoughtful and utterly compelling – very highly recommended indeed.   

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

Another excellent novel set during the Troubles, Trespasses is a quietly devastating book, steeped in the tensions of a country divided by fierce sectarian loyalties. It’s also quite a difficult one to summarise in a couple of sentences – at once both an achingly tender story of an illicit love affair and a vivid exploration of the complex network of divisions that can emerge in highly-charged communities. The narrative revolves around Cushla, a young primary teacher at a local Catholic school, and her married lover, Michael, a Protestant barrister in his early fifties. Here we see ordinary people living in extraordinary times, buffeted by a history of violence that can erupt at any moment. I loved this beautifully-written, immersive page-turner – it’s probably one of my top three books of the year.

Dandelions by Thea Lenarduzzi

In Dandelions, the Italian-born editor and writer Thea Lenarduzzi has given us a gorgeous, meditative blend of family memoir, political and socioeconomic history, and personal reflections on migration between Italy and the UK. Partly crafted from discussions between Thea and her paternal grandmother, Dirce, the book spans four generations of Lenarduzzi’s family, moving backwards and forwards in time – and between Italy and England – threading together various stories and vignettes that span the 20^th century. In doing so, a multilayered portrayal of Thea’s family emerges, placed in the context of Italy’s sociopolitical history and economic challenges. Another book I adored – both for its themes and the sheer beauty of Lenarduzzi’s prose.

So that’s it for my favourite ‘recently published’ titles from a year of reading – I’d love to hear your thoughts below. Do join me again next week when I’ll be sharing the best older books I read this year with plenty of literary treasures still to come!