A couple of years ago, I read and thoroughly enjoyed A Silence Shared, a beautiful, enigmatic novel by the Italian writer, translator and artist Lalla Romano. First published in Italy in 1957, Tetto Murato (A Silence Shared) was translated by Brian Robert Moore and published by Pushkin Press in 2023. Now Moore and Pushkin have returned with an elegant English translation of another of Romano’s books, Nei mari estremi or In Farthest Seas, a profound, intimate and deeply moving elegy to Innocenzo (Cenzo) Monti, Romano’s husband of circa fifty years. If anything, I loved Seas even more than A Silence Shared, possibly because it reads like a work of autofiction. There is a genuine sense of honesty and vulnerability here, a palpable poignancy that cuts close to the bone.
Written as a series of crystalline vignettes, In Farthest Seas constructs an evocative portrait of the first four years of Lalla’s relationship with Cenzo (culminating in their wedding in the early 1930s), and the final four months they spent together before his death in the mid-1980s. In a candid Afterword, Lalla explains that she wrote the second part of the book (subtitled Four Months) first, with the first section (Four Years) following later to fill in the backstory of their burgeoning relationship. Nevertheless, looking back at that earlier time, the subtle premonitions of loss seem particularly noticeable.
A little earlier on the snowfield – we were at a distance from the group during the ascent, too – we made out before us, in the uniform white (in the shadows), as strand of black marks spaced apart, coming into focus as small pointed bodies: birds, swallows. Stuck in the snow. Seven of them. No doubt blinded, tricked by the white, they had missed the mark in their low flight. Or some impact, a sudden violence of the wind. The small tragic image was one of defeat, but also a transfiguration. (p. 30)
At times, Romano’s exquisite prose style is akin to a stream of consciousness, blending memories with personal reflections, ruminations on the nature of life and touchstones from the arts – paintings and works of literature are particularly significant here.
In Part One (Four Years), we see how Lalla and Cenzo meet during a hiking trip, quickly bonding over a shared fondness for Modigliani’s artworks. As they begin to spend more time together, a deep attraction develops between the pair.
It was November, we needed to light the wood stove. He chopped wood in a little clearing and grew warm from this exertion, so that, despite the cold, his shirt gleamed white in the twilight. There was something at once adventurous, exotic (in sense of far-away countries) and intimate in that image, as though already lived (or dreamed). It matched, or rather expressed all the risk and mystery there was in that cold light, in that solitude. In the stories by Lawrence that I had just read, I had found this; and for a moment I felt an attraction for him that was violent, secret, but I believe already tenaciously deep. It wasn’t an idea, it was a sensation; head-spinning, but not unsettling. Rather, familiar. (p. 18)
Lalla detests conventional role-based labels such as ‘wife, husband, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, and the like’, indicating her reluctance to submit to traditional societal expectations and conventions. Nevertheless, when her relationship with Cenzo becomes serious, Lalla’s family make it known that the two are engaged, partly to maintain a sense of respectability. Cenzo’s family, however, are less happy about the match as they consider Lalla a step down from their social position, particularly with Cenzo’s father’s position as a Colonel. But despite these barriers, the couple do marry, albeit in a quiet ceremony in Boves, where they have spent previous summers.
In Part Two (Four Months), the tone of voice becomes more poignant, highlighting Lalla’s fears over the forthcoming loss and the grief she will inevitably feel. References to distance and absence recur, offering painful contrasts to the closeness and presence she has shared with Cenzo.
It was not in illnesses that I feared losing him; but in absences, in distance. To die is to move off into the distance: I’d find this out later. (p. 58)
He had always loved departures. In airports, upon arrival, he’d turn to look at the planes ready to leave, and say: ‘I’d like to board another one!’
Back then, a departure meant a beginning. More than departing, now it seemed to mean distancing, ‘moving off’. To be dead is to be absent. To die is to set out towards absence. (p. 128)
Oftentimes, it’s the smallest things that hit the hardest for Lalla – a noticeable pallor in Cenzo’s face, an uncharacteristic slowness in his walk, a persistent pain in his back – all early warning signs that something might be amiss.
Interwoven with these meditations are thoughts of happier times, memories and reflections that illustrate the depth of their love for one another while also giving us insights into Cenzo’s character.
In my books Innocenzo is a virile character: rational, a protector; but he was also feminine: gentle, fanciful. Such that his face’s ‘manly’ beauty was not aggressive, but delicate, in its strong structure. That strength was granted by the prominence of his cheekbones: the ‘nomad’ structure (which I’d first discovered with Giovanni and which I always need). And manly beauty is more complete if it has something feminine. As with the spirit, in fact. (p. 92)
The publisher’s description likens In Farthest Seas to the work of Annie Ernaux and Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, presumably due to its rawness and emotional honesty. These are valid comparisons, for sure, but to my mind, Romano’s prose style is more poetic than either Didion’s or Ernaux’s. There is a graceful lyricism here, a stylistic approach that seems perfectly in tune with the subject matter, breathing life into Lalla’s emotions without ever over-dramatising them.
Life – ours – had reached a summit. The last loving breakfast at Piperno, in the small piazza. Between shade and light. Only the two of us, and a gentle wind blowing through the set and empty tables. Usually we went in the evening. For the first time I walked over to see, from up close, the old, dry fountain.
Tranquil happiness. Deluded – maybe I alone – by the bliss of that moment. His anaemia had been defeated by six transfusions. Delusion, I don’t think so. Knowing abandon – and not regrettable. Gratitude, actually. (p. 114)
Unsurprisingly, the poignancy steps up again in the final stages once it becomes clear that Cenzo has only a few weeks left to live. The darkness falls on Lalla as she attempts to slow down time – psychologically, at least.
Everything went dark. That was it, the true sentence. In that moment I lost him, I knew I had lost him.
Suddenly time had been cut frighteningly short; like for a person plummeting who sees moving towards her the ground where she’ll be crushed. (p. 125)
As I mentioned earlier, various references to writers and artworks are woven through this text. From Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir to Rembrandt’s portraits and Bacon’s Triptychs, these touchstones add another dimension to Lalla and Cenzo’s story. In fact, Bacon’s paintings prove especially striking, resonating even more sharply as the spectre of death closes in. The loss of a loved one is always hard to bear, even when we know the end is coming, as is the case here.
Now the agony, the horror. No one has represented the torture of that final agony like Bacon. We’d gazed at it together for a long while, in London, many times. Especially that Triptych. The screaming, the fury, the disfigurement. And yet it is mercy. There is no mercy without mercilessness. (p.157)
Beautiful, candid and profoundly moving, In Farthest Seas is a kaleidoscopic elegy to a longstanding love and a loss deeply felt. It’s a heartfelt, melancholic read, and yet there is genuine beauty here too, while also encouraging us to reflect on our own mortality. I loved this book and hope to find a place for it in my 2026 highlights, even though we’re barely into the new year. (My thanks to the publishers for kind providing a review copy.)
As in previous years, I’ve spread my Books of the Year across two posts. Part 1, published on Tuesday, highlightedmy favourites from the first half of the reading year (roughly speaking), while Part 2 features the standout reads from the second half of 2025. Apologies, but I couldn’t bear to leave any of them out, even though it means a total of twenty-six books for the year as a whole.
So, to cut to the chase, here are my favourite reads from mid-2025 onwards, most of which were first published in the 20th century. Alongside the titles featured in Part 1, 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 book in this post, but in each instance, you can find my full review by clicking on the relevant title.
Brother… is a coming-of-age novel, and a superb one at that, partly due to Trapido’s prose, which is sharp, lively and flecked with dry wit. Our narrator is Katherine Browne, a bright, impressionable young woman, ready to break away from her prim, suburban upbringing in North London at the age of eighteen. Happily, I found her voice utterly engaging from the start. The novel follows Katherine as she moves to London, where she is taken under the wings of her ebullient philosophy professor and his bohemian family. Love, heartache and a spell in Italy duly follow, with more heartbreak hovering on the horizon.
In summary, it’s a captivating and insightful novel about first love, heartache, disillusionment and growing up – as moving and unsentimental as it is funny and charming. Trapido also touches on motherhood, grief and depression in the narrative, weaving together wry humour and genuine poignancy to excellent effect.
Ostensibly the story of Moran, an ageing, tyrannical father, whose wife and daughters both love and fear him, this novel can also be seen as a reflection of the deeply conservative nature of Irish society during much of the 20th century, a world dominated by stifling patriarchal power structures in which women were kept firmly in their place. Beautifully constructed in simple, unadorned prose, McGahern has written a superb character study here – a minor masterpiece with an immersive sense of place. I adored this subtle novel, which feels so well suited to fans of William Trevor, Colm Tóibín, Claire Keegan and Dierdre Madden, all of whom have an innate ability to see into the hearts and minds of their characters with insight and precision, laying bare their deepest preoccupations and insecurities for the reader to see.
First published in 1946, Palladian is something of an outlier in Elizabeth Taylor’s oeuvre. On one level, it is the story of a recently orphaned eighteen-year-old girl, Cassandra Dashwood, whose headmistress finds her a position as a governess following the death of her father. Young, naive and something of a romantic, Cassandra quickly determines to fall in love with her new employer, Marion Vanbrugh, a rather closeted, effeminate widower who, in the wake of WW2, seems disconnected from the harsh realities of British life. So far, so Jane Eyre, albeit a 20th-century version.
However, beyond this initial set-up, darker preoccupations emerge. Decay, disintegration and self-destruction seem to be Taylor’s major themes here, from the crumbling façade, interiors and statues that characterise Copthorne Manor, the Vanbrugh’s jaded estate, to the self-loathing, bitterness and angst exhibited by various family members and their acquaintances. As ever with Taylor, the characterisation is sharp and insightful – from the main protagonists to the supporting players, everyone is brilliantly sketched. Interestingly, this book has really grown in my mind since I re-read it earlier this year. A surprisingly enduring novel, which demonstrates that even a ‘lesser’ Taylor is streets ahead of many other writers’ best.
A Woman by Sibilla Aleramo, 1906 (tr. Erica Segre and Simon Carnell)
What a phenomenal book this is, an autobiographical feminist novel first published in Italian in 1906, under a pseudonym due to its radical content! Touching on similar themes to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s seminal text The Yellow Wallpaper and Alba de Cespedes’ startling confessional novel Forbidden Notebook, in which a woman explores the right to her own existence in light of the demands of marriage and motherhood, Aleramo’s A Woman reads like a howl from the past, a cry of anguish for liberty, independence and intellectual fulfilment in an oppressive world.
In passionate, emotive prose, Aleramo lays bare the horrific realities of life for a young Italian woman trapped in a brutal, patriarchal society, in which a married woman is considered her husband’s property to do with as he pleases. I found it a vital, propulsive read, an early example of feminist autofiction that deserves to be widely read. Annie Ernaux fans should be rushing to pick this up!
Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang, 1943-7 (tr. Karen S. Kingsbury, 2007 & Eileen Chang, 1996)
In this insightful, exquisitely written collection of four novellas and two short stories, Chang exposes the traditional social mores at play in 1940s Shanghai and Hong Kong, complete with all the cruelties, restrictions and hypocrisies these unwritten rules dictate. Born into an aristocratic family in Shanghai in 1920, Chang was raised by her deeply traditional father, an opium addict, and her more progressive mother, a woman of ‘sophisticated…and cosmopolitan tastes’, partly developed during time spent as a student in the UK. Her family background and formative experiences enabled Chang to straddle different cultures and see the world from different angles.
In her precision, attention to detail and scalpel-like dissection of the complexities of human behaviour and social mores, Chang reminds me of Edith Wharton, another female writer whose characters often find themselves trapped between two worlds: one driven by personal needs and desires, another by societal conventions and moral codes. There are other similarities too, not least an interest in their characters’ inner lives, often closed to outside observers, but vividly alive inside. Both writers are also adept at combining psychological acuity with a strong sense of cultural place, all cloaked in precise, elegant prose. Highly recommended for fans of this style.
An exquisitely observed exploration of two loveless, unfulfilling marriages and the shifts in dynamics that occur when two captivating visitors enter their stagnant world. Set in an unnamed provincial town during the interwar years, A Note… features two couples, Grace and Tom Fairfax and their friends, Norah and Gerald MacKay, all of whom are discontented in their different ways. Into this troubled world comes Hugh Miller, a bright, sensitive, passionate young man who charms everyone he meets, and his sophisticated, liberated sister, Clare.
Something that Lehmann does particularly well here is to illustrate how inner lives can be altered in subtle but highly significant ways, even when outwardly everything remains broadly the same. By the end of the year, Hugh and Clare will have departed, leaving the Fairfaxes and MacKays to carry on with their lives largely as before. Nevertheless, internally, the tectonic plates have shifted, opening up new levels of understanding and appreciation between Grace & Tom – and between Norah & Gerald. Early middle age is a tricky period for many of us, a time when the optimism, rapture and ambitions of youth may have given way to routine, resignation and a lack of fulfilment. Lehmann writes beautifully about these challenges, showing us how new understandings can be reached in the present, even if the past can never be recaptured.
This superb novel is somewhat different from Brookner’s trademark stories of unmarried women living quiet, unfulfilled lives while waiting for their unattainable lovers to make fleeting appearances before disappearing into the night. In this instance, Brookner turns her gaze towards the aptly named George Bland, a quiet, respectable, recently retired man in his mid-sixties living a dull, highly ordered existence in a comfortable London flat. In many respects, he is the male equivalent of Brookner’s archetypal spinsters – a man adrift, living a narrow life on the periphery, while all the excitement and passion seems to be taking place elsewhere.
As the novel unfolds, Brookner explores what can happen when such a life is disrupted, raising the tantalising possibility that it might veer off course. With Brookner’s A Private View, the catalyst for the potential derailment is the arrival of an alluring, infuriating young woman, who takes up residence in the flat opposite George’s. Every time I read another Brooker, I find a new favourite, and this was no exception to the trend!
A moving, elegantly crafted novel that goes deep into character, Miller’s latest takes place in the winter of 1962-63, one of the coldest British winters on record, when temperatures plummeted, blizzards swept in and rivers began to freeze over. It’s an atmospheric backdrop for this story of two marriages, in which the author gives us access to the inner world of each of his main characters – their hopes and dreams, their preoccupations and fears.
As this slow-burning novel unfolds, Miller excels at reflecting the bleak, desolate landscapes of the brittle West Country winter in the emotional isolation felt by his four protagonists – a troubled, hard-to penetrate GP and his lonely, pregnant wife, plus an ambitious, educated farmer and his flighty partner, a former dancer in a Bristol nightclub. Each figure is preoccupied and adrift in their own individual way, raising the possibility that either of these marriages could easily fracture, should the hand of fate twist one way instead of the other. It’s a beautifully written book, very much in tune with the 20th-century writers I love.
Regular readers of this blog are probably aware of my fondness for Barbara Comyns – a startlingly original writer with a very distinctive style. Her novels have a strange, slightly off-kilter feel, frequently blending surreal imagery and touches of dark, deadpan humour with the harsh realities of life. This wry sense of the absurd is one of Comyns’ trademarks, cleverly tempering the darkness with a captivating lightness of touch. There’s often a sadness in her narratives too, a sense of poignancy or melancholy that runs through the text. First published in 1985, The Juniper Tree is very much in this vein.
In short, it’s a clever, dreamlike reimagining of the Grimms’ fairy tale of the same name – in fact, the novella’s epigraph is a rhyme taken directly from that classic story. Ostensibly set in London in the late 20th century, Comyns’ spin on The Juniper Tree reads like a timeless dark fable, weaving together the innocence and savagery that characterise many of this author’s best books. While much of what happens here is rooted in reality, Comyns invests her narrative with a surreal, otherworldly quality, tilting the familiar into something slightly off-kilter. Right from the very start, the reader is unsettled, sensing perhaps the tragedy to come…
For a novel first published in 1934, Sally Carson’s Crooked Cross feels remarkably timely, charting, as it does, the rise of Nazism in the early 1930s, the falling apart of a country’s fundamental codes of decency and the moral fortitude required to stand against persecution. Recently republished by Persephone Books, the book makes chilling reading in 2025, a time when far-right extremism, hate speech and inhumane discrimination against various groups continue to increase.
Carson was a frequent visitor to Bavaria in the early 1930s, and her insights into what was happening there fed into Crooked Cross. In some respects, she was writing in real time, sounding a warning alarm on the pernicious rise of fascism and its grip on the nation. By scrutinising the broader political developments spreading across Germany through the lens of the Klugers, an ordinary middle-class family living in the fictional town of Kranach, close to the Austrian border, Carson illustrated the allure of the fascist movement, particularly for disaffected young men. Lacking the structure and focus of regular work, these men saw the Nazi Party as providing many of the things that had been lacking in their lives, from stability, status, power and responsibility to purpose, direction and a reason to exist. Moreover, the movement gave young Germans a convenient scapegoat – i.e. the Jews – to blame for everything that had been denied them in the lean post-WW1 years. A brilliant, terrifying, immersive novel that deserves to be widely read – it’s also an excellent combination of the personal and political, just the type of book I love.
Published in English in 1958 and subsequently translated into French by the author himself, Lady L. was my first experience of Romain Gary’s fiction, but hopefully not my last. What a delightful novella this turned out to be – an elegant story of love, long-held secrets and railing against the conventional establishment, in which the pull of personal desires is pitted against political principles and beliefs! It reads like a work of 19th-century French fiction, which fans of du Maupassant, Flaubert and Louise de Vilmorin’s Madame de__ will likely enjoy.
In short, this charming picaresque tale takes the reader from the slum districts of Paris to the upper echelons of French society, with a story involving spectacular robberies, betrayal, capture, escape, reunion and unexpected marriages, all topped off by a surprising denouement. I’m delighted to see this back in print, courtesy of the Penguin Archive series.
Born in Lancashire in 1917, Leonora Carrington is perhaps now best known as a surrealist artist; however, during her career, she also wrote novels, short stories, a play and a memoir, all infused with her dreamlike, idiosyncratic worldview. First published in English in the mid-1970s but reputedly completed in 1950, The Hearing Trumpet is as unconventional as one might expect from this visionary creative – a surreal, subversive, wildly imaginative novella that challenges traditional patriarchal and ageist societal structures, turning them neatly on their heads in thrilling fashion. It is, by turns, hilarious, surprising, esoteric and poignant – a wonderful sui generis work that defies categorisation.
The novella is narrated by Marian Leatherby, a ninety-two-year-old woman who lives in Mexico with her family, who, in turn, consider her somewhat burdensome and eccentric. Before long, Marian is packed off to a care home, which turns out to be more sinister than it appears at first sight. Much is made of the seemingly ‘eccentric’ nature of elderly women here, a label often attached to marginalised individuals to explain away their unconventional qualities. Carrington, however, was well aware of the revolutionary potential of women who looked at the world differently, and as the novella unfolds, eccentricity is portrayed in a positive, liberating light as a rebellious force for good.
First published in 1896 and recently reissued as part of the Penguin Archive series, The Country of the Pointed Firs is a classic example of literary regionalism, a genre of writing in which the local setting, landscape, history, community and customs are centre stage. Through a series of evocative vignettes, Jewett conveys a rich picture of everyday life in the fictional small-town community of Dunnet Landing on the east coast of Maine. It’s a gem of a book – reflective, affecting and beautifully crafted.
Central to the story is Jewett’s narrator, an unnamed female writer (possibly Jewett herself) who has come to Dunnet Landing for the summer to work on her writing. Through her landlady, Mrs Todd, who has lived in the area since her birth, the narrator is drawn into the lives of the local inhabitants – their stories and histories, preoccupations, and concerns. Something Jewett does particularly well here is to capture the traditional rhythms and rituals of life in this coastal community, the importance of female friendships and shared stories, resilience and independence, occasional family gatherings and reunions, nature and landscape. In short, it’s a gorgeous paean to ordinary lives well lived, where small acts of kindness and generosity brighten the spirits, easing some of the difficulties humanity must face.
So that’s it for my Books of the Year, 2025! Do let me know your thoughts on my choices – I’d love to hear your views.
Thanks so much to everyone who has read, commented or engaged with my thoughts on books over the past year. I really do appreciate it.
All that remains is to wish you all the very best for the festive season and the year ahead. Here’s to another great year of reading and more book chat in 2026!
I seem to say this every year, but 2025 really has been a great reading year for me. From new releases to treasures from the TBR to brilliant reissues and rediscoveries, the books have been excellent, with very few misses.
As before, I’m splitting my favourite reads of the year into two parts, with thirteen highlights in each post; however, in this instance, the split is fairly arbitrary. Today’s post covers my favourites from the first half of the reading year (roughly speaking), while part two (coming at the weekend) will feature the standout reads from the second half of 2025. I couldn’t bear to leave any of them out, even though it means a total of twenty-six books.
So, without further ado, here are my favourite reads from Jan – May 2025! These are the books I loved, the books that have stayed with me, the books I’m most likely to recommend to other readers. As ever, many of these titles were first published in the 20th century, although there are a few recent releases as well. I’ve summarised each one in this post, but in each instance, you can find my full review by clicking on the relevant title.
With its undercurrent of domestic horror and flashes of pitch-black humour, this unnerving novel is a brilliant exploration of our collective fascination with gruesome true crimes, how sometimes we can become emotionally involved in a media story with which we have no personal connection. Blackwood seems particularly interested in how a mother’s protectiveness towards her child can tip over into an unhealthy obsession – in this instance, the transition is prompted by the brutal assault and murder of a young girl in the local community, fuelled by media reports and underlying social anxieties. It’s a fascinating, disturbing book, reminiscent of Shirley Jackson in its darkness and unflinching pursuit of a singular vision.
First published in 2015 and reissued this year by Daunt Books, The Odd Woman and the City is Gornick’s ode to New York, a book that captures the rhythms and idiosyncrasies of this vibrant metropolis in sharp, insightful prose. Presented as a sequence of beguiling vignettes, the book delves into Gornick’s reflections on friendship, romantic love, childhood memories, ageing, navigating life alone in a busy city and the kaleidoscopic nature of New York itself. The relationships other writers enjoy with major cities are also briefly featured. The vignettes are not grouped chronologically or by topic; rather, Gornick moves seamlessly backwards and forwards in time and from one theme to the next, sharing insights and confidences on a variety of different subjects as she goes. In fact, the book’s rhythm – vibrant, fast-moving and constantly changing in nature – reflects the city’s character itself.
There is so much insight, honesty and intelligence in these vignettes, and Gornick is a delightful companion – smart, curious and ever-observant. If, like me, you enjoy exploring cities on foot, soaking up the atmosphere of the urban streets, you will likely love this one.
I can’t quite recall where I first heard about Donald Henderson’s excellent novel, Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper, a wickedly satirical portrayal of a murderer operating under the cloak of the London Blitz. It may have been on Backlisted, always an excellent source of lesser-known gems, or possibly during a discussion about boarding-house novels, a genre close to my heart. Either way, I’m very glad to have discovered it. That said, this pitch-black wartime gem might not be to everyone’s tastes. If you’re a fan of Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square, William Trevor’s The Boarding-House or Patricia Highsmith’s The Blunderer, chances are you’ll enjoy this book. If not, you might want to steer clear! I loved this darkly satirical portrayal of Henderson’s twisted, opportunistic killer, and the Patrick Hamilton-style vibe really drew me in. Not for the sensitive or faint-hearted, but a wickedly compelling novel nonetheless. Raymond Chandler was a huge fan!
A Little Luck by Claudia Piñeiro, 2015 (tr. Frances Riddle, 2023)
A fascinating, utterly gripping novel about chance vs fate, split-second decisions and their irreversible consequences, guilt vs responsibility and condemnation vs redemption. In short, this thought-provoking story follows a middle-aged woman, Mary Lohan, who returns to her old neighbourhood in Temperley, Buenos Aires, after an absence of twenty years. At first, we don’t know why she has come back, or the reasons behind her earlier departure, but things gradually become clearer as the novel unfolds. Piñeiro is very skilled at withholding key information, and the novel is a masterclass in measured pacing and the piece-by-piece reveal. The compelling first-person narrative reads like a kind of confession, establishing a level of intimacy with the reader and drawing them into Mary’s story from the opening pages. An outstanding, beautifully written novel that’s hard to shake.
There is something genuinely fascinating about raking over the coals of a humungous financial disaster – a point eloquently illustrated by film critic and writer Tim Robey in his hugely enjoyable book, Box Office Poison, a catalogue of cinematic catastrophes from the past hundred years. In some respects, this roll call of wreckage presents an alternative history of Hollywood through its most costly failures, and it’s a delight to read!
Robey’s definition of a flop is simple. Crucially, the film must have made a significant loss at the box office. In other words, flops are defined in commercial terms rather than ruinous reviews by critics (although in some instances, the two go hand in hand). Moreover, the production must have been truly insane in some way for a film to qualify for inclusion, thus making the story suitably interesting to recount. From outright horrors with few redeeming features (such as Jan de Bont’s pedestrian actioner Speed 2: Cruise Control and Thomas Lee’s ‘textbook shambles’ Supernova) to genuinely decent films that flopped due to unfortunate circumstances (e.g. William Friedkin’s Sorcerer), this is catnip for the cinephile in your life!
Barbara Pym has made several appearances in my reading highlights over the years, and she’s here again in 2025 with a fairly recent reissue. First published in 1978, The Sweet Dove Died is one of Pym’s post-wilderness novels, and as such, the tone feels somewhat darker than her earlier work. There’s a genuine poignancy here, a sense of a woman losing her beauty and allure as younger, more attractive rivals threaten to supersede her in the search for affection. While the novel’s tone is poignant, especially towards the end, there are some wonderful touches of humour here, too. Pym’s fiction may at first seem light or inconsequential, but it’s a testament to her skill as a writer that she captures the delicate tension between humour, pathos and absurdity that characterises so much of our lives. I adored this beautifully written exploration of the narrowing opportunities for love as we age and lose our lustre – it’s top-tier Pym for me!
Groundbreaking on its initial publication in 1938, There’s No Turning Back can now be viewed as a prescient, transgressive exploration of women’s desire for independence, autonomy and self-expression. By weaving together the stories of eight young female students living in the Grimaldi, a convent-style boarding house in Rome, de Céspedes presents the reader with a range of different experiences as each of these women must find a way to live, to shape her future direction for the better.
In essence, each student is trying to bridge the gap between the role society has deemed for her and the one she herself wishes to adopt. Moreover, she must consider what challenges must be overcome and what sacrifices need to be made to achieve her aspirations. With many of these women looking to branch out beyond the traditional gender-based roles of wife and mother, the novel explores themes such as female friendship, agency, independence, autonomy, ambition, desire, and fulfilment in a wonderfully engaging way. By focusing on the choices these characters make to break free from their constraints, de Céspedes explores the upsides and downsides of progression through education vs work, love vs independence and personal desires vs familial duty. An immersive, richly imagined novel that deserves to be better known.
Strange, unsettling and beautifully written, Stone Yard Devotional is a quiet, meditative novel that explores themes of loss, grief, forgiveness, guilt, atonement and death – the kind of mysterious, slow-burning narrative that gets right under the skin. Written partly as brief diary-style entries and partly as a series of reflections on events, the novel is narrated by an unnamed woman in late middle age. With her marriage crumbling and a loss of faith in her environmental work, Wood’s narrator has come to an isolated retreat in New South Wales to reflect and contemplate her existence. All proceeds smoothly until the retreat’s peaceful atmosphere is rudely disrupted by three unsettling visitations (more of which in my full review).
Wood’s style is subtle and understated, leaving much unsaid for readers to contemplate and fill in for themselves. Forgiveness and atonement are recurring themes here as the author invites us to consider what it means to forgive someone who has wronged us and what we truly want when attempting to atone. An absorbing, thought-provoking book – one of the best new novels I’ve read in recent years.
This strange, magical, exquisitely written book is a tricky one to summarise in a few lines, but I’ll give it a go! On one level, it’s a remarkably poignant reflection on what it might be like to exist in the afterlife, how it feels emotionally to be caught between life and death, to be a member of the undead. In other words, it’s a zombie story, but not as we know it – de Marcken’s vision is much more inventive and beautiful than that brief description suggests. Alongside (and perhaps entwined with) its themes of yearning, loss and grief, the book can be viewed as a metaphor for our current existence in an isolated, alienating 21st-century world, where the overwhelming horrors and uncertainties of modern life leave us feeling disillusioned and numbed. The ending, when it comes, is beautiful, enigmatic, sad and strangely fitting. I adored this deeply affecting exploration of grief and all the longing, pain and sadness this all-consuming experience evokes. A highly original novella that deserves to be widely read.
First published in 1975 and now well established as a modern classic, Turtle Diary is a charming, piercingly perceptive exploration of different facets of loneliness and the fear of stepping outside one’s comfort zone in the maelstrom of middle age. The novel’s premise seems at once both simple and eccentric – and yet, it all works remarkably well. Divorced bookseller William G. lives in a London boarding house run by a landlady, Mrs Inchcliffe – a far cry from his former life in Hampstead as a husband and father with a job in advertising. While his work at the bookshop brings William into contact with the smart ladies of West London, his personal life is a desert – dry, lonely and painfully directionless.
Also feeling lost is Neaera H., a writer and illustrator of children’s books who works from home with nothing but a water beetle for company. Middle-aged and unmarried, Neaera is adrift in a sea of loneliness, lacking a clear purpose or direction as she struggles with writer’s block. As the novel opens, these two individuals are unaware of one another, but as Hoban’s narrative unfolds, their lives become inextricably entwined, setting up the premise for this marvellous story. An unexpected gem tinged with sadness.
Over the years, Edith Wharton has become one of my favourite authors. She writes precisely and perceptively about the cruelties embedded within the upper echelons of American society in the early 20th century. For instance, the tensions that exist between restraint & passion and those between respectability & impropriety. These qualities are central to Wharton’s much-loved society novels The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth, both of which I adore. The Reef could easily be added to this list, particularly given the devastating nature of the premise. It’s a story of indiscretions, deceptions and complex romantic entanglements where what remains unsaid can be more damaging than the details revealed.
Central to the novel, which revolves around a love triangle (or possibly a quadrangle), are questions of trust and integrity. For instance, it is better for us to be honest about our past mistakes, even when we know such revelations will hurt the ones we love, or should we lie and cover our tracks to avoid undue distress? And if the terrible truth should come to light, will it be possible for our loved ones to forgive and forget?
Last year, I read and loved Mariana Enriquez’s Things We Lost in the Fire, a superb collection of macabre, deeply disturbing short stories in which elements of Gothic horror and surreal, otherworldly imagery mingle with insightful social critique, tapping into the collective traumas from Argentina’s atrocities, both past and present. Enriquez grew up during the Dirty War, when several thousand Argentine citizens were murdered or disappeared. Consequently, the ghosts of the vanished – both literal and metaphorical – haunt many of her stories, bringing the country’s horrors to life in vivid and compelling ways.
Translated into English in 2021, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is in a very similar vein to Fire – another unnerving collection of stories with the power to destabilise and disturb contemporary readers. Enriquez excels at weaving together the surreal and supernatural, embedding these into the real-world socio-political horrors of life in Argentina, from poverty, parental neglect and sexual abuse to disappearances, murders and other criminal activities. There’s a wildness or sense of craziness to many of these stories, twisting the recognisable into distorted, destabilising shapes – and it’s this rooting in reality, the real and inescapable, that makes Enriquez’s stories so horrifying and impactful to read. Unnerving, alluring and inventive, these stories are not for the faint-hearted; otherwise, very highly recommended indeed!
I loved this hugely enjoyable, fast-moving caper, largely set in a high-class London hotel. Fashioned on the Savoy in London, the Grand Babylon is expensive, exclusive and efficient, a model of discretion and quietude favoured by royalty and other dignitaries from the upper echelons of society. Newly arrived at the hotel are Theodore Racksole, a wealthy American magnate, and his daughter, Nella, a self-assured young woman full of initiative. Following a run-in with the haughty head waiter at dinner, Racksole buys the hotel, and within hours, strange things begin to happen, culminating in a sudden death.
What follows is a gripping sequence of escapades taking Theodore and Nella to the darkest corners of Ostend while also embroiling them in the romantic entanglements of a missing European prince. Along the way, there are kidnappings and disappearances, disguises and concealed identities, not to mention various political machinations afoot. There’s even time for a sprinkling of romance, adding greatly to the novel’s elegance and pleasures. In short, it’s a delightfully entertaining story imbued with glamour, suspense and a great deal of charm!
So, that’s it for Part 1 of my favourite books from another year of reading. Do let me know your thoughts on my choices – I’d love to hear your views.
In this fascinating, deeply moving book, the Italian writer Marta Barone takes the reader on a journey to reconstruct the father, Leonardo Barone (LB), she only partially knew before his death – an investigation that takes us back to The Years of Lead, a time of radical protest and political turmoil in Italy during the 1970s and early ‘80s. It’s a dense, complex, powerful work, expertly translated by Julia MacGibbon. By combining autofiction with social and family history, Barone has created a thoroughly absorbing blend of the personal and political here, bringing this violent era in Italian history vividly to life. Highly recommended, especially for any reader interested in this period of political activism, seen through the prism of one family’s shattering experiences.
The book’s narrator, clearly Marta Barone herself, is an aspiring writer and publishing associate who assesses English and French manuscripts for an Italian press. Following the death of her father, Leonardo, two years earlier, she has moved from her home city of Turin to Milan, triggering feelings of loneliness in this unfamiliar environment.
The quest for the truth begins when Marta’s mother finds a bundle of papers relating to her late husband, including reports from his trial and subsequent appeals in the 1980s. At first, Marta shows little interest in the documents – she was aware that (false) accusations of terrorism had been made against her father, without fully understanding the details, and has always been content to leave it at that.
He had told me that he had been a doctor; that he’d been arrested and accused of being a terrorist; that the other doctors at the hospital he worked at had turned their backs on him, and for that reason he hadn’t wanted to go back there and had abandoned the profession; that in the end he had been acquitted on all counts. […]; that he had never been a terrorist. And on that count, I continued to have no difficulty in believing him. And that was that – apart from the odd comment made over the years. On one occasion: ‘Someone from the Front Line was wounded, and I treated them, ergo,’ with a sarcastic emphasis on the illogical connection, ‘they accused me of being a member of the Front Line.’ […] I don’t think he ever furnished any other details. And I never asked. (p. 25)
Nevertheless, six months later, on looking at one of the documents in detail, Marta is quickly drawn into a series of mysteries relating to her father’s past. The more she reads, the more she realises that her understanding of LB and the life he led before her birth is incomplete, to say the least. In short, she has been left with a selective picture of this inscrutable man in which many questions remain unanswered; and her need for a more complete understanding triggers the investigation charted in this book.
Essentially, the charges laid against him [LB] only partially corresponded with the version he had sketched out for me. There had been much more going on. But the gaps still remaining were too important to allow me to form a clear picture. Why was he, by his own admission, ‘well-known in subversive circles’? How was that possible? In what setting and in what circumstances could someone – a person who belonged to an armed band – have ended up looking at him in a way that would tell him, ‘it was a subject best not discussed’? And what subject? (p. 32)
Armed with fragments of personal memories and patchy historical reports, some of which reveal selective details, the narrator delves into her father’s mysterious life, gleaning insights from those who knew him during the 1970s and early ‘80s. Through a series of discussions with her father’s friends, family members, lawyers, political associates and adversaries, alongside a meticulous search through personal documents, newspaper articles and legal reports, Marta attempts to piece together a more holistic and truthful picture of this complicated, enigmatic man. In effect, she is writing him back into history, both her own biography and Italy’s political history in its broadest sense.
Naturally, there are various doubts, frustrations and blind alleys along the way; and, for much of her investigation, Marta has no way of knowing what her father truly thought and felt about various events from that time, as there are no diaries or personal notes for her to draw on. While other people’s recollections are undoubtedly useful, they are, by their very nature, incomplete and somewhat subjective, blurred or distorted by the slippery nature of our memories and the inevitable passage of time. On the upside, though, people remember LB. He was generous, exuberant and charismatic, while remaining something of an enigma to those who knew him.
I had a confused sensation that in this thing – this secret – there must be something that had always escaped me, something fundamental. It was a nebulous sensation that accompanied me everywhere, like a hidden treasure sewn into the lining of a coat. (p. 35)
As a child, Marta was very close to her mother, sharing many experiences and thoughts. By contrast, her relationship with LB was more distant – partly because father and daughter lived apart for much of Marta’s childhood (her parents separated after three years), and partly because they struggled to talk to one another, the only notable common ground being a shared love of Greek myths. Moreover, Marta often detected a certain falseness in her father’s public persona, an ability to code-switch his personality depending on the audience at the time.
I found the contrast between his public and private personas very irritating (by private, I mean when it was just the two of us and we had no audience of any kind), as I did the fake, artificial mannerisms he adopted when anyone else was around; it was as though he were acting out an exaggerated version of the image he thought they had, or wanted them to have, of him. (p. 14)
This father-daughter relationship was particularly strained during Marta’s teenage years, partly due to the emotional turmoil of adolescence and partly because LB himself became increasingly aggressive, short-tempered and irrational. Nevertheless, there are glimpses of happier times, too – summer holidays spent together, car journeys when they would sing along to favourite tunes, lively discussions about literature, including one about the reliability (or not) of the narrator in Nabokov’s Lolita, which seems particularly relevant to Marta’s quest for the truth. As Marta’s investigations progress, various details about her father’s left-wing political beliefs and roles in subversive activities come to light. She learns how he moved from modest beginnings in Puglia to the cosmopolitan city of Rome in the 1960s to study medicine, his immersion in student protests/occupations, and his confrontations with the Italian Police during the heated Battle of Valle Giulia in 1968.
Along with his first wife, Agata, LB was an active member of Serve the People, a group advocating for socialist revolution and workers’ rights. The party considered LB a useful resource, sending him to Turin to live and work alongside the oppressed factory workers in the city with the aim of enlisting them in the movement’s cause.
However, despite his political sympathies with this and other radical left-wing movements, LB had significant concerns about some of their methods. For instance, he disagreed with the group’s use of violence and was never a member of the more extreme armed factions such as The Red Brigades or Front Line (Prima Linea). Perhaps for this reason, the party considered him valuable up to a point, but ill-disciplined and perhaps not fully committed. Moreover, the personal sacrifices comrades were expected to make in support of the greater good became increasingly challenging for LB to manage. In effect, he and Agata were expected to hand over all their income and possessions to the party in exchange for a comrade’s meagre wage. Their living conditions were abominable (as were those of the proletariat), forcing them to get by without furniture, crockery and other essential items. In effect, their identities and personal needs were erased in favour of the party’s ultimate cause.
Newspaper reports indicate that warrants were issued for LB’s arrest during this turbulent period. In essence, these warrants covered a series of alleged crimes aimed at violently undermining the economic and social order of the Italian state, including the distribution of subversive material advocating insurrection, the possession of firearms and explosives, and even armed robbery. None of these alleged charges were ever brought against LB at the time, but the reports illustrate the authorities’ interest in him in the 1960s and ‘70s, long before his actual arrest in the 1980s.
The incident which led to LB’s imprisonment concerned his role in treating a man injured in a shooting – an activist who, unbeknownst to LB at the time, turned out to be a member of a Front-Line armed gang. Following the shooting, a political associate had called on LB for help, hoping to find a medic he could trust or lean on for assistance, knowing full well that LB would almost certainly cooperate. Although LB was never a member of Front Line himself, his involvement in this aspect of the shooting’s aftermath was enough for the authorities to convict him, and he was duly jailed following his trial.
Understandably, once this and other violent incidents LB had witnessed or been connected to come to light, Marta is haunted by another series of unanswered questions which run through her mind.
Was it possible that, at the moment in which he [LB] walked into the flat? (I imagined it being a flat) where a guy with machine-gun wounds was waiting for him, presumably several hours after the shoot-out, he still hadn’t known anything about it, hadn’t connected to two things: the wounded man there in the flat, and the dead lad lying on a pavement a few miles away, in Borgo San Paolo? […] What questions had he asked himself, as he bent over that man? What went through his mind? Why had it been him they called? (p. 38)
The more information she uncovers, the more Marta realises the magnitude of the trauma her father must have carried inside him, shedding new light on the belligerent man she recalls from her childhood. For instance, in one particularly horrific incident, LB witnessed two stabbings, ultimately forcing him to temporarily abandon one of the victims – his closest friend at the time – to get medical help.
Somewhat tragically, Marta discovers that what destroyed her father was not the year he spent in jail, but the way former friends and colleagues ostracised him following his appeals and subsequent release. People assumed that LB had talked (and possibly betrayed other activists) to secure his freedom, which wasn’t true, but they turned their backs on him nonetheless. In short, he was left a broken man. There was no job for him to return to; any involvement in political activism was out of the question; and former comrades no longer spoke to him, many reviling the man they considered a traitor. Nevertheless, in time, LB rebuilt his life, marrying Marta’s mother and fathering Marta herself, even though this marriage soon broke down.
The book’s title refers to an allegory, a mythical sunken city named Kitezh, located on the shores of Lake Svetloyar in central Russia. As legend has it, having been tipped off by a traitor, the Tartars arrived to conquer Kitezh, only to see it sink into the lake and vanish before their eyes. All their attempts to find and resurrect the city proved fruitless. Nevertheless, the legend maintains that Kitezh continued to exist beneath the lake’s surface, fully functioning with all its inhabitants intact, despite being hidden from view.
In some respects, this sunken city is a metaphor for the narrator’s quest as she tries to bridge the gap between the visible surface of her father’s life and the inner secrets, trauma and pain he must have harboured deep within him. At one point, Marta reflects:
It was as though an underground existence rolled on in parallel with the visible world: me waiting for the next meeting with someone who would describe another fragment of L.B. to me; the slow, patient search for names, faces or circumstances in the documents, the books, the newspaper archives; and the emotion in the voices on the phone, and in the voices of all the strangers I was gradually put in touch with. That shook me, every time. (p. 92)
In Sunken City, Marta Barone has created a fascinating, multilayered portrait of her father, writing him back into Italy’s tangled political history. Moreover, this immersive book charts a process of self-discovery for the narrator herself as she is forced to re-examine the past, reshaping her own story in new and surprising ways. Tonally, Marta’s account is imbued with a melancholy sense of nostalgia, a yearning on her part for conversations with her father that never took place – conversations that might have taken place had her father lived longer. ‘Nostalgia for the no-longer-possible.’
Sunken City is published by Serpent’s Tail; my thanks to the publishers and the Independent Alliance for kindly providing a review copy, which I read for #WITMonth.
What a phenomenal book this is, an autobiographical feminist novel first published in Italian in 1906, under a pseudonym due to its radical content. Touching on similar themes to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s seminal text The Yellow Wallpaper and Alba de Cespedes’ startling confessional novel Forbidden Notebook, in which a woman explores the right to her own existence in light of the demands of marriage and motherhood, Aleramo’s A Woman reads like a howl from the past, a cry of anguish for liberty, independence and intellectual fulfilment in an oppressive world.
In passionate, emotive prose, Aleramo lays bare the horrific realities of life for a young Italian woman trapped in this brutal, patriarchal society, in which a married woman is considered her husband’s property to do with as he pleases.
So this was to be my life, to be used as an object of pleasure while feeling deeply violated – and to see night follow day, and day night, with no change or end in sight (p. 203)
Over the course of its 235 pages, this extraordinary novel takes in the sexual assault of a minor, an ill-fated marriage, domestic abuse, various infidelities, the impact of VD, the frustrations of being trapped in a violent, unfulfilling relationship, mental illness and the subjugation of women in general. While this description probably sounds off-putting, I urge you to consider reading this book, especially if you have any interest in the realities of women’s lives in the early 20th century. Sadly, some women almost certainly still exist in a similar hellscape today, which makes the novel all the more impactful. I found it a vital, propulsive read, an early example of feminist autofiction that deserves to be widely known. Annie Ernaux fans should be rushing to pick this up!
The novel is narrated by an unnamed woman, whom we follow from the age of eight through to her late twenties, by which time she has been driven to desperation, highlighting the tragedy of her situation. As a young girl (the eldest of four siblings), she is charming, intelligent and spirited, enjoying a carefree childhood in Milan. Her father, a science teacher, is intellectually gifted, but prone to sudden fits of furious rage. Nevertheless, despite these occasional outbursts, Aleramo’s protagonist loves her father deeply, looking up to him as a guiding light for her development and education. The mother, on the other hand, is seen as weak and ineffectual, failing to push back against the subordinate role she has assumed.
Why was she [Mother] so readily prone to tears, while my father could not bear the sight of them; and why were her opinions, when she dared to express them, so frequently at odds with his? Why, also, was she so little feared by her children, and so seldom obeyed? Like Father, she would sometimes give in to moments of anger; but it seemed then as if she had merely succumbed to an outpouring after bottling things up for too long… (p. 7)
When her father gets a new job managing a chemical factory in southern Italy, the narrator (now an adolescent) and her family move south. At first, she is captivated by the natural beauty of the countryside, but the lack of stimulation triggers a longing for Milan. The girl’s mother also finds it hard to adjust; there is nothing here for a woman in her position, precipitating a decline in her mental health. Meanwhile, the narrator’s father refuses to engage with the local community, shunning their local customs and rituals. His decision to draft in a management team from the north causes ructions at the factory, adding to the general hostility towards him in the village.
With no decent schooling available in the south, the narrator takes up the role of secretary at her father’s factory, helping to balance the books – and it is here, at the age of fifteen, that her world begins to collapse. Firstly, she learns of her father’s ongoing infidelity, shattering the image of him as a loyal, trustworthy man. Secondly, she becomes friendly with a young man at work, ten years her senior, and her initiation into the realities of relationships between men and women is sudden and brutal.
With several years of experience under his belt, this self-assured man senses the narrator’s innocence and ignorance of the facts of life. Consequently, he conceals his true intentions towards the girl with playful gestures and smiles, encouraging her to exchange intimacies ‘as if they were forfeits in a game’. Before she knows it, a sexual assault – almost certainly rape – has taken place, leaving the narrator reeling. Given her mother’s depression, she has no one to help her process what has happened. Moreover, the cultural environment in the southern Italian village is ripe with hypocrisy, corruption and abuse, exacerbating the narrator’s situation and the erosion of her liberties. As such, she convinces herself that this is all part of the courtship ritual (which, in a horrific way, it is), and her marriage to the abuser is soon arranged.
Did I belong to this man now?
After I don’t know how many days of indescribable confusion – I have only a vague, blurred memory of that time – I came to believe that I did.
Suddenly my existence, already rocked by being abandoned by my father, was turned upside down, tragically altered. What was I now? What was I about to become? My life as a girl was over.
My pride in being an independent, thinking person was in its death throes… (p. 41)
Unsurprisingly, the honeymoon is a disappointment. There are no expressions of love or an awakening of the senses for the narrator here, only tensions and emotional strain, heightened by an argument over a trivial matter. Her husband soon reveals himself to be violent, brutal and insensitive; moreover, his intense jealously, lack of insight into others’ feelings and inability to express affection or compassion simply exacerbate the emotional gulf between the two of them. When a would-be seducer tries to tempt the narrator away – advances she refuses, by the way – her husband becomes verbally and physically abusive, flinging her to the ground in a fit of pique.
Accepting marriage with someone who had overpowered me and flung me to the ground when I was weak and defenceless, I had convinced myself that I was following what nature had dictated: I was following my destiny as a woman, which required me to recognize that I was powerless to stand on my own two feet. But I had also sought to show that the disaster that had befallen me was not stronger than me, to give a human face to that fate. (p. 89)
Not even the birth of the couple’s son improves the situation. While the narrator loves her son deeply, motherhood alone is not enough to fulfil her – emotionally, mentally or intellectually.
The mother in me could not be reconciled with the whole woman: the essentially pure joy and sorrow that emanated from that perfect being clashed with an instability, alternating between languor and excitement, desires and disappointments that I didn’t know the source of and that caused me to think how very unbalanced and incomplete a person I must be. (p. 76)
A mental fatigue descends over Aleramo’s protagonist, giving rise to intense dissatisfaction, a form of self-criticism from the better parts of her character which have been neglected and repressed. She is tormented by various unanswered questions. Why, for instance, should she never experience a moment of happiness or desire? How can a woman find broader fulfilment when the only options open to her are marriage and motherhood to an abusive monster? Why shouldn’t she be swept away by a love that is stronger than any domestic duty or need?
For a while he maintained his prohibitions and I continued not to go out, spending long afternoons shut indoors with a controlled amount of writing paper for correspondence, not allowed to see anyone apart from my relatives, the doctor and the housemaid – all under the pretence of ample freedom, but with such crude surveillance that I would have found it amusing were it not for the fact that at still not twenty-one years old my life had become so irredeemably joyless. (p. 109)
On discovering some old letters, the narrator realises that her mother also experienced similar frustrations to her own in the early years of marriage. She too had once been young, kind, beautiful and intelligent, but marriage to the narrator’s father had extinguished any joy in her life, transforming it into one of suffering and repression. In essence, marriage had obliterated any joy and spontaneity from this woman’s life, denying her an outlet for her thoughts and intellectual ambitions – a revelation that makes her eventual mental breakdown feel all the more tragic.
Why do we idealize self-sacrifice in mothers? Where does this inhuman idea of maternal self-immolation come from? It has been passed down from mother to daughter for centuries. It has produced a monstrous causal chain. As women we all become aware at some point of how much our mothers have done for us, and with this knowledge comes remorse for the person who brought us into the world – for not having adequately compensated for the damage she did to herself in doing the best for us. And so we lavish on our own children all that we failed to give our mothers; denying ourselves and offering a new example of mortification, of self-annihilation. What if one fine day this fatal chain was to be broken, and a mother did not have to suppress the woman in herself, and a son learned about self-respect from her example? (p. 208)
Nevertheless, despite the erosion of the narrator’s freedoms, there are glimpses of a more fulfilling life and the intellectual stimulation that she so desperately craves. Following a split between her husband and the factory’s management, the narrator and her family move to Rome, where she gets a job as a sub-editor for a new women’s magazine. While still largely confined to her home, Aleramo’s protagonist can at least converse with like-minded individuals here, including the magazine’s illustrator, a progressive Norwegian woman who encourages the narrator to find outlets for her opinions. Her husband, however, retains a tight grip on her liberty, monitoring his wife’s movements and visitors for any signs of ‘betrayal’. He is intensely jealous, taking these suspicions to unreasonable extremes.
There are times when the narrator reflects on the need for a book to be written, something that lays bare the stark realities of women’s lives, cementing into print the ideas that have been swirling in her mind in recent years. But who would write it? Could she be the one to light that fuse, to represent the narrowness of such a life on the page? Naturally, she could, as this is the novel we are reading today, largely written for her son as an explanation of her situation.
Something that Aleramo does particularly well here is to illustrate her protagonist’s state of mind as she grapples with her fundamental dilemma. Knowing that her husband will not agree to an amicable separation and custody of the child, she must decide between the lesser of two evils. Should she remain with her husband for the sake of their son while risking the same mental decline as her mother (now confined to a psychiatric institution)? Or, should she put her own personal well-being and needs first by walking out on her marriage and leaving their child with his father – a man she feels she cannot trust? This is the choice she has to make, and it’s an agonising one, whatever the outcome. In the eyes of the law, the narrator will have no rights to custody or access to her child if she abandons the marriage. Her husband will fight any attempts, that much is clear…
Unsurprisingly, A Woman created quite a stir in Italy on its publication in 1906, and it still feels vital and shocking today. The intense, claustrophobic atmosphere Aleramo creates perfectly matches her protagonist’s mindset, bringing her anguish vividly to life. Moreover, her decision to leave the narrator and other characters unnamed gives the story a sense of universality. While this is one woman’s experiences we are immersed in here, in truth, this could have happened to any of us, had we been born in different circumstances. It’s a propulsive, urgent read that deserves to be much better known – highly recommended as an essential feminist text, and a great choice or #WITMonth (Women in Translation).
A Woman is published by Penguin Modern Classics; personal copy.
Perfection, the fourth novel by the Italian writer, translator and art critic Vincenzo Latronico, caught my eye when it was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize earlier this year. It’s an arch, sharply observed satire about the hollowness of a life lived online, carefully curated to showcase the perfect lifestyle, ready to post on Instagram or the hip social media platform of the day. I thoroughly enjoyed this quick, slyly amusing read, beautifully translated by Sophie Hughes in clean, crisp prose – a streamlined style ideally suited to the subject under scrutiny here.
Millennial expats, Anna and Tom, have the seemingly perfect set-up in uber-hip Berlin, having moved there from southern Europe when rental prices were low. As freelance digital creatives, they have the flexibility to work from their home – a trendy apartment – cocooned in a bubble of low-maintenance monstera plants, honey-coloured floorboards, Danish mahogany armchairs, herringbone tweed blankets and first-edition Kraftwerk LPs.
Sunlight floods the room from the bay windows, reflects off the wide, honey-coloured floorboards and casts an emerald glow over the perforate leaves of a monstera shaped like a cloud. Its stems brush the back of a Scandinavian armchair, an open magazine left face-down on the seat. The red of that magazine cover, the plant’s brilliant green, the petrol blue of the upholstery and the plain ochre floor stand out against the white walls, their chalky tone picked up again in the pale rug that just creeps into the frame. (p. 13)
Their working lives are spent online, designing websites, tweaking graphics and developing digital campaigns, interspersed with frequent breaks spent scrolling through social media feeds to keep abreast of emerging trends. Consequently, Anna and Tom have fallen into a circular pattern of social media use, uploading various images of their carefully curated existences, monitoring comments and likes on these posts and checking their virtual network for the latest in-vogue craze. Promising new trends and consumable goods are soon absorbed into the couple’s lives, ready for the online cycle to begin again. (Importantly, Latronico’s frequent use of ‘they’ underlines Anna and Tom’s homogeneity and lack of individual opinions or personalities – essentially, they are a single entity, inseparable from one another.)
What was that rush they would get after a particularly popular post? And the itch that made them look up from their work every twenty seconds, every minute, to refresh the page and watch the number of likes clock up, as if it was a stock ticker or a scoreboard? They felt it every day, and yet that feeling had no name. It wasn’t a scoreboard – there was no prize at the end. Financially speaking, it had very little impact, if any. Fifty-year-old sociologists would talk about narcissism, but they were only talking about themselves. (pp. 54-55)
Downtime is typically spent at a gallery opening or a hip club, where the couple brush shoulders with other expat millennials endlessly searching for the perfect life. They don’t have friends as such; rather, their network is more a lattice or matrix of like-minded individuals sharing similar, shallow obsessions than a genuine friendship group built on trust.
Once the group had reconvened they would go and get eggs and salmon (or asparagus, when it was in season) in some café, where they might stay for thirty minutes or several hours, leafing through magazines they had already read online and commenting – with barely disguised sarcasm, with suppressed rage, with nostalgia or disappointment – on the latest news from France or Portugal. The late afternoon would be spent going from gallery to gallery. They were all signed up to the same newsletter listing the latest art events, which included icons to denote whether there would be free drinks or if the crowd would be mostly German- or English-speaking. (pp. 36–37)
Year after year, Anna and Tom continue to live this soulless existence, endlessly accumulating the on-trend ‘stuff’ that seems to define them as people. We learn little, if anything, about their respective personalities, the values that define them as human beings with beliefs idiosyncrasies and life-shaping experiences – a deliberate tactic on Latronico’s part, emphasising the extent to which the couple’s lives are defined by on-trend possessions, lifestyle choices and Instagram posts. Their existences are ‘smooth and manicured’, unlike those of their grandparents indelibly marked by war.
The problems back then might have been more urgent, but they also had clearer solutions. Now there were too many choices, with each one leading off on endless branches, preventing any real change. Their idea of a revolutionary future didn’t go beyond gender balance on corporate boards, electric cars, vegetarianism. Not only had Anna and Tom not had the chance to fight for a radically different world, but they couldn’t even imagine it. (p. 69)
Nevertheless, this ‘perfect’ lifestyle doesn’t prove as satisfying as Anna and Tom expect, and a sense of restlessness gradually creeps in alongside the ongoing gentrification of Berlin. Work becomes burdensome and repetitive, while the cost of living continues to edge up. Members of the couple’s social network disappear, moving back to the countries they came from, starting families or simply moving on. When the migration crisis hits Berlin, Anna and Tom’s surface-level attempts to help newly arrived Syrian refugees fail to have an impact, partly due to their lack of real-world experience and practical skills.
They had glimpsed – within themselves and those around them – a flakiness and vanity that they could not now unsee. They were restless. (p. 77)
Furthermore, a new, younger generation is now threatening to supersede our protagonists as the Gen Z digital natives come of age. In their ongoing search for some kind of meaning in an essentially hollow world, Anna and Tom spread their wings, taking on a project in Lisbon while subletting their flat in Berlin. Maybe Lisbon will be the new Berlin, ushering in the feeling of happiness that seems tantalisingly out of reach? Sadly, the reality fails to live up to the dream, and a move to Noto in Sicily proves equally disappointing, dampening the couple’s spirits further still.
Happiness was there, tantalisingly close, and achievable with a simple operation of the mind. But seconds later the side of the concrete shell of a half-finished building, or a dilapidated shopping centre surrounded by rubbish and burned-out cars was enough to remind them they were still very far from what they wanted. (p. 103)
In the acknowledgements section at the end, Latronico states that Perfection came about as a tribute to Things: The Story of the Sixties (1965) by George Perec, closely following that book’s structure, use of tenses and fundamental themes. While I haven’t readThings myself, I believe Perec uses the conditional tense in the book’s opening section to convey the material desires of his protagonists, Jerôme and Sylvie, two twenty-something freelancers working in the emerging fields of opinion polling and consumer research. Like Anna and Tom, Perec’s characters covet fashionable furniture, clothes and a hip place to live – in this instance, 1960s France. Sections written in the present and future tenses duly follow, the latter portraying the couple’s imagined future.
In Latronico’s Perfection, the final ‘future’ section brings this thought-provoking novella about disaffected millennials to a fitting, slyly amusing close. Despite (or maybe because of) the book’s brevity, I thoroughly enjoyed this sharp, forensically observed critique of consumerism and the shallowness of a life played out online. In many ways, it’s a timely wake-up call for some of the downsides of social media and the ongoing trend for users to construct the perfect Instagramable life at the expense of genuine human connection. Highly recommended!
They lived a double life. There was the tangible reality around them, and there were the images, also all around them. (p.51)
Perfection is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in the UK and NYRB in the US; my thanks to the publishers and the Independent Alliance for kindly providing a review copy.
The award-winning Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg has been a major discovery for me over the past six years, largely due to Daunt Books’ and NYRB Classics’ sterling work on reissuing her books. (My review archive is here, should you be interested in other titles.)
Much of Ginzburg’s fiction explores the messy business of family relationships, the tensions that arise when people behave selfishly at the expense of those around them. In contrast to characters in many British and Irish novels, Ginzburg’s protagonists don’t keep their feelings under wraps; instead, they express them openly, typically using the blunt, direct language that characterises this author’s work.
First published in 1984, The City and the House is very much in this mould – an absorbing, emotionally truthful novel told entirely in letters, charting a complex map of relationships over two to three years. As with Ginzburg’s excellent novel All Our Yesterdays, The Cityand the House is something of an ensemble piece focusing on a group of friends and family, although two or three figures emerge as being central to the collective.
Most weekends, the friends come together to relax at Le Margherite, a large country house in Monte Ferme, owned by Piero and Lucrezia, a generous couple who claim to have an open marriage. In truth, however, the marriage is only open on Lucrezia’s side as Piero has remained faithful to his wife throughout, despite her affairs. Also living at Le Margherite are the couple’s five children and Piero’s elderly mother, who play minor roles in the story.
The couple’s closest friend is Giuseppe, a writer who is fed up with his unfulfilling life and job in Rome, penning articles for a newspaper. As the book opens, Giuseppe is planning to leave Italy, a move he hopes will transform his life for the better, but more of that shortly…
Also living in Rome are Giuseppe’s cousin, Roberta, a shrewd, plain-speaking woman who understands the value of property; his homosexual son, Alberico, who is semi-estranged from his father; Egisto and Albina, whose relationship waxes and wanes over time; Albercio’s lover, Salvatore, a man embroiled in shady business dealings of some sort, probably related to drugs; and their friend Nadia, heavily pregnant, but with no partner in sight. In time, another figure makes his way into the group, Ignazio Fegiz, an arrogant, dismissive man who frames paintings for a living.
In her characteristically candid, insightful style, Ginzburg proceeds to trace the emotional highs and lows experienced by each member of the group as their lives are marked by drastic change. Seemingly stable relationships fracture and crumble, while more tenuous bonds deepen and strengthen. There are births, marriages and deaths, separations and abandonments, foolish decisions galore, all unfolding in a fervent exchange of letters between members of the group.
…it is very difficult to dissolve a marriage, there are always scattered bits of it lying about and every now and again they give a twitch and draw blood. (Egisto to Giuseppe, p. 259)
The search for happiness or fulfilment seems to be a key theme in Ginzburg’s fiction, and it’s very much in evidence here, particularly in Giuseppe’s and Lucrezia’s storylines. The pair were once lovers and remain very close – a friendship readily accepted by Lucrezia’s husband, Piero, who doesn’t view Giuseppe as a threat to his marriage.
In the opening letter, Giuseppe outlines the details of his forthcoming move to America to live with his brother, Ferruccio, a move their cousin Roberta considers foolish. Roberta, as it turns out, may well be right, as life in America is not what Giuseppe envisaged. Within months of his arrival, Giuseppe finds himself dealing with his brother’s sudden death, an event that catalyses a whole sequence of unexpected developments for the newcomer, encompassing marriage, surrogate fatherhood, messy romantic entanglements and yet more death. It’s quite a ride, partially matched by Lucrezia’s own surprising story arc, fracturing the life she has built with Piero. Whether or not these characters actually find happiness is a key preoccupation for Ginzburg. Their quests are often misguided; alternatively, they may not recognise contentment, even when they have it. Happiness is often fleeting and best appreciated in retrospect when we can look back on events from an objective distance – a quality that makes it difficult to recognise in the moment.
As I alluded to earlier, Ginzburg excels in portraying direct emotions, using the epistolary form to excellent effect. Her characters often pass judgement on mutual friends or family members, highlighting their foolishness and ill-advised decisions.
Lucrezia is deceiving herself about Ignazio Fegiz. She imagines that this is her great love and that he is the one man in her life. Like hell he is. He hasn’t gone to live with her and I don’t believe he ever will. He wouldn’t dream of it. And so she’s alone and pregnant with five children and a dog in a dark, noisy apartment in the old part of Rome – without a blade of grass in sight or even a balcony, with a cleaning woman who’s paid hourly, with hardly any money and hardly any freedom to go out. It’s a disaster. (Serena to Egisto, pp. 165–166; Serana is Lucrezia and Piero’s former au pair.)
Moreover, they are almost as blunt with each other, facilitated perhaps by the distanced medium of a letter vs a phone call or face-to-face conversation. Old grudges are raked up, mistakes are pointed out, and jealousies are exposed, all with the frankness typified by Ginzburg’s approach.
Roberta says that when you and your brother were children, you always wanted to do what he did. And so now you’ve married his wife. But I think you’ve finished up in a real stinking mess. I’ve seen a photograph of you and Anne Marie. Roberta showed it to me. Anne Marie is ugly. Those eyes, that raincoat, that smile. She’s cross-eyed. Her smile is false. You have your usual look of a bird that’s just fallen off a roof. (Lucrezia to Giuseppe, p.167)
Taking responsibility and providing protection for loved ones are also relevant here. To Giuseppe, Ferruccio represents stability, safety and protection – the older brother who looked after him when he was young, hence his decision to move away from Italy. Giuseppe goes to America to hide ‘under his brother’s wings’. But, as Lucrezia neatly puts it, ‘brothers don’t have wings’, a brutal truth her former lover soon finds out. Also significant here is Giuseppe’s failure to take responsibility for his son, Alberico, when the boy was growing up – an absence that shapes Alberico’s own attitudes to (adoptive) fatherhood once Nadia’s baby is born.
As always, Ginzburg’s prose seems unadorned and straightforward on the surface, but this apparent simplicity belies the complexity of emotions running through the text. Resentment and jealousy, delusion and dismissal, poignancy and yearning – these feelings and more are woven into the letters, buffeting these characters as they navigate their lives. There’s often a savage seam of humour too, particularly in the most candid exchanges, such as the last two passages quoted above. (‘You have your usual look of a bird that’s just fallen off a roof.’) Elsewhere, Ginzburg strikes a more poignant note, especially when relationships break down, as in Piero’s marriage to Lucrezia.
Lucrezia has gone. I don’t know where she’s gone, she didn’t tell me. I’m alone in this house which I loved so much, and which I now hate. My mother and children are away. I don’t know where Lucrezia is. It’s terrible to think about someone all the time and not know where she is. (Piero to Giuseppe, p. 143)
In The City and the House, Ginzburg has crafted a beautiful, candid, wryly humorous novel, charting the surprising highs and lows of human relationships. Her characters are complex, flawed and nuanced – qualities that make them feel real and humane as they navigate the many challenges life throws at them. In some respects, this book is a stylistic and thematic companion piece to the author’s 1973 melancholy novel Happiness, As Such, which unfolds partly through a series of letters between family members. Both come highly recommended by me – my thanks to Daunt Books for kindly providing review copies.
The Italian-Cuban writer Alba de Céspedes is fast becoming one of my favourites. I’ve posted before about her exquisitely-written feminist novels Forbidden Notebook (1952) and Her Side of the Story(1949), both of which I loved. Now Pushkin Press has published another of her books – an early novel titled There’s No Turning Back – which might just be my favourite of the three.
Groundbreaking on its initial publication in 1938, There’s No Turning Back can now be viewed as a prescient, transgressive exploration of women’s desire for independence, autonomy and self-expression. By weaving together the stories of eight young female students living in the Grimaldi, a convent-style boarding house in Rome, de Céspedes presents the reader with a range of different experiences as each of these women must find a way to live – to shape her future direction for the better.
“…It’s as if we’re on a bridge. We’ve already departed from one side and haven’t yet reached the other. What we’ve left behind we don’t look back at. What awaits us is still enveloped in fog. We don’t know what we’ll find when the fog clears. Some lean too far out, for a better view of the river, and they fall in and drown. Some, tired, sit down on the bridge and stay there. The others, for good or ill, go on to the other shore.” (p. 70)
In essence, each student is trying to bridge the gap between the role society has deemed for her and the one she herself wishes to adopt. Moreover, she must consider what challenges must be overcome and what sacrifices need to be made to achieve her aspirations. While these young women have come to Rome from various backgrounds with different aims and desires for the future, they are united by a common purpose – a desire to have some control. Moreover, they are bound together by their circumstances and daily habits through studying and living at the Grimaldi. Their friendships with one another are intimate but almost certainly fleeting, likely to last two or three years at most.
When the novel was first published in 1938, it became an instant success, electrifying readers with its transgressive portrayal of women’s lives. Nevertheless, its radical nature attracted the attention of Italy’s Fascist authorities, who banned the book, primarily because its depictions of women’s aspirations were deemed to be in direct opposition to the traditional gender-based roles of wife, carer and mother. Interestingly, de Céspedes revised the book stylistically and structurally a number of times; as a consequence, Ann Goldstein’s translation is based on the author’s final version, published in Italian in 1966.
The novel takes place over eighteen months from autumn 1934 to summer 1936, and de Céspedes does an excellent job of using the Grimaldi’s cloistered atmosphere to emphasise the restrictions these young women face, especially under the watchful eyes of the nuns.
“Ten,” Vinca said, “and we’re shut up in here. We couldn’t go out if we wanted to: the gate is locked, the sister sleeps with the key under her pillow. You know, when I arrived that half-closed gate in the entrance hall—unnecessary after the glass door and the outer door—frightened me? In fact it’s a symbol…” (p. 88)
However, despite the house rules of no talking or smoking, and lights out after ten, the girls gather in a room every evening to share their inner thoughts and experiences, all under the pretext of studying.
The central character here is Emanuela, an amiable, empathetic twenty-four-year-old from Florence, who quickly makes friends with the other girls on her arrival. Ostensibly at the Grimaldi to study art history, Emanuela is harbouring a secret from her fellow students and the nuns – an illegitimate child, Stefania, whom her conservative father has insisted she keep hidden to preserve the family’s reputation. As such, the toddler attends a boarding house in Rome, which Emanuela covertly visits on Sundays.
Emanuela feels a sense of peace and comfort at the Grimaldi, free from her father’s old-fashioned views and controlling ways. In truth, though, her life is a fragile ‘architecture of deceptions, a cathedral of glass’ at risk of collapse, threatening to expose the different (and entirely separate) compartments of her existence. On the one hand, she is the girl who lives in a student residence (the Grimaldi), while on the other, she is the mother who visits her daughter at a respectable boarding school. If these two distinct worlds were ever to connect, the consequences could be disastrous for all concerned. Somewhat perversely, the novel touches on the idea that a comfortable status and social class can, in some instances, inhibit one’s ability to act freely – mostly because the stakes become relatively high with a significant amount to lose.
Risking everything—Emanuela was considering—is the privilege of those who have no social position. The others, despite freedom and even a flaunted open-mindedness, are constrained by vague but invincible fears, by traditions that everything around them evokes. Absurd as it may seem, freedom is denied to those who exist not only in themselves but also as an expression of a precise value, like social class or wealth. (p. 158)
As the novel unfolds, de Céspedes reveals Emanuela’s backstory – how she met and fell in love with Stefano, the Italian pilot who fathered her child – their tender romance, and his tragic death, killed while on duty just months after he and Emanuela met.
On falling for Andrea, a male literature student at the university, Emanuela begins to imagine rebuilding her life after Stefano. Consequently, she keeps Stefania a secret from Andrea, fearing he might reject her if the child’s existence should come to light. Nevertheless, as this relationship with Andrea deepens, it becomes harder for Emanuela to keep her two existences separate from one another…
Smart, savvy and resourceful by nature, Xenia is a particularly interesting member of the group, partly because she takes a different path from the other girls at the boarding house. Having unsuccessfully defended her thesis, Xenia refuses to contemplate going home to her parents as it would be tantamount to admitting defeat. (In short, her father mortgaged his vineyard to pay for her education, and now the money has run out.) Instead, she leaves the Grimaldi to set out on her own. By living mainly on her wits, Xenia carves out a new life for herself, working her way up from a poorly paid sales assistant to an efficient secretary in a matter of months. Nevertheless, work is a means to an end for Xenia, so when a speculative businessman, Dino, befriends her, she seems content to become a kept woman – enjoying the finer things in life that her benefactors provide without worrying about morals.
It’s a different direction from those adopted by the other students, but de Céspedes refuses to judge any of her characters for their actions. Rather, she invites us to understand and empathise with them, given their personal circumstances at the time.
In contrast to the other girls, Augusta – who is well into her thirties – is something of a permanent fixture at the Grimaldi, remaining at the boarding house year in, year out, with no sign of graduating. There was a fiancé once, but she no longer has any interest in men – those days are long gone. What does the future hold for Augusta? She could become a nun, especially if she continues to live at the Grimaldi; but as Emanuela discovers, Augusta is writing short stories and novels in secret, feminist tales that she hopes to publish. In theory, Augusta believes every woman should have the right to carve out an independent existence for herself. In reality, though, writing is a form of escape, a way for Augusta to deny her own uselessness, filling the days that stretch out ahead. Like Xenia, Augusta knows she cannot go home – there’s no going back to her former life, as the novel’s title clearly implies.
“…By now, one can’t go home anymore. Our parents shouldn’t send us to the city; afterward, even if we return, we’re bad daughters, bad wives. Who can forget having been master of herself? And in our villages a woman who’s lived alone in the city is a fallen woman. Those who remained, who passed from the father’s authority to the husband’s, can’t forgive us for having had the key to our own room, going out and coming in when we want. And men can’t forgive us for having studied, for knowing as much as they do…” (pp. 93–94)
The academically-minded Silvia offers de Céspedes the opportunity to highlight another path for women looking to break free of their constraints – in this instance, one forged through education. Silvia is plain, rational and very clever, hailing from a poor Calabrian family used to adopting submissive roles. Her life revolves around work, a concept her traditional mother fails to understand. Although Silvia eschews boys, she develops a crush on her professor, Belluzzi, who asks her to assist him with his research. It’s a role Silvia feels privileged to perform, but her academic success brings change, and these new opportunities require some adjustment, prompting Silvia to branch out in another direction.
The group is rounded out by the remaining four young women. Firstly, we have Vinca, an impulsive, emotional Spanish girl who enjoys performing small acts of rebellion against the nuns at the boarding house. When her politically-minded boyfriend, Luis, joins the Civil War, Vinca leaves the Grimaldi, taking up residence with another Spanish family in Rome. While Vinca would like to believe that Luis adores her, there are times when she doubts his commitment, fearing he is in love with a childhood friend from home.
Anna and Valentina have come to the Grimaldi from the same village in Puglia; nevertheless, they belong to different social classes (a distinction that becomes obsolete in the safety of the house). While Valentina’s family are poor, Anna’s parents are relatively wealthy landowners with aspirations to move to the city, a desire that Anna and her grandmother do not share. After graduation, Anna wishes to return home, keen to live a simple life in the farming country of her childhood. Meanwhile, Valentina, who hails from a peasant family in the same area, hopes to become a teacher to support her widowed mother, who currently depends on money from her begrudging brothers-in-law. Valentina has a crush on a local boy, Mario, who seems more interested in Anna, much to Valentina’s dismay.
Finally, there is Milly, a quiet girl from Milan with a serious heart condition. She has been sent to the Grimaldi by her father to prevent the deepening of an affectionate relationship he considers inappropriate, but letters between the two friends continue to be exchanged.
Something de Céspedes does so well here is to create complex, nuanced characters capable of experiencing conflicting emotions and holding contradictory thoughts in their minds, just as we all do in real life. In short, these women refuse to be pigeonholed, continuing to surprise us through their thoughts and actions.
She [Emanuela] harboured an undefined feeling that at times made her wish for peace, at times drove her to flee from It, fearing its monotony. She deplored the emptiness of her life without aspirations: but nothing, until now, had satisfied her. She had an innate discontent, along with a solid capacity to adapt, not to mention a vague longing for sacrifice, for altruism. (p. 218)
As the narrative focus moves from one young woman to another, the author also excels at differentiating each member of the group, drawing them clearly and vividly. Even Milly, who features less prominently than the other students, is fleshed out sufficiently for us to appreciate her.
With many of these women looking to branch out beyond the traditional gender-based roles of wife and mother, the novel explores themes such as female friendship, agency, independence, autonomy, ambition, desire, and fulfilment in a wonderfully engaging way. By focusing on the choices these characters make to break free from their constraints, de Céspedes explores the upsides and downsides of progression through education vs work, love vs independence and personal desires vs familial duty. I adored this richly imagined novel and feel sure it will find a place in my end-of-year highlights.
There’s No Turning Back is published by Pushkin Press. My thanks to the publishers and the Independent Alliance for a review copy.
I love Muriel Spark. Her short, sharply observed novels always have something interesting to say, even when they veer off in eccentric, off-kilter directions. The Driver’s Seat remains one of the most fascinating, unhinged novellas I’ve ever read and is all the better for this strangeness.
First published in 1968, The Public Image is a very clever exploration of celebrity culture and the cultivation of the perfect but vacuous public image for the benefit of adoring fans. As ever with Spark, the observations and writing are razor-sharp. Moreover, for a novella which is nearly sixty years old, it still feels highly relevant to the social-media-driven environment that fascinates so many of us today.
Spark’s story revolves around Annabel Christopher, a thirty-two-year-old English actress whose star is in the ascendancy. Following a sequence of minor roles in British films, Annabel is now in Rome, working with the Italian producer Luigi Leopardi as one of the leads in his latest movie. Annabel establishes no deep connections to the characters she plays; rather, she draws on her surface-level instincts, which she uses very adeptly, circumventing the need to perform or emote.
In practice her own instinctive method of acting consisted in playing herself in a series of poses for the camera, just as if she were getting her photograph taken for private purposes. She became skilled at this; she became extremely expert. […] She did not need to be clever, she only had to exist; she did not need to perform, she only had to be there in front of the cameras. (pp. 8–9)
Also in Rome are Annabel’s lazy husband, Frederick, and their baby son, Carl, whom Annabel adores. Frederick was a young actor just starting out in rep theatre when he met Annabel twelve years ago; however, while Annabel’s reputation has grown steadily over the years, Frederick’s career has stalled. Deeming himself worthy of only serious, intellectual roles, none of which ever came his way, Frederick has remained content to stay at home all day in their Kensington flat, living off Annabel’s money while dabbling in scriptwriting on the side.
Her husband, when she was in his company with his men friends, and especially with Billy O’Brien, tolerantly and quite affectionately insinuated the fact of her stupidity, and she accepted this without resentment for as long as it did not convey to her any sense of contempt. The fact that she was earning more and more money than her husband seemed to her at that time a simple proof that he did not want to work. (pp. 6–7)
Nevertheless, as the story unfolds, we realise that Annabel is well aware of Frederick’s dependency on her earnings despite his cultivation of his image as an intellectual. Also of significance here is Billy O’Brien, Frederick’s oldest friend, whom Annabel finds rather irritating but tolerates due to his links with her husband. Spark nails Billy’s character with this insightful, pithy description.
Billy was like a worn-out something that one had bought years ago on the hire-purchase system, and was still paying up with no end to it in sight. (p. 3)
Right from the start, Spark establishes the importance of Annabel’s public image to her career. Moreover, the novel cleverly explores some of the roles society deems appropriate for women to play and the contradictions and constraints these unwritten rules can create. For instance, while Annabel can be a sex symbol on the screen, her public image must remain pristine, strictly unblemished by any hints of infidelity or immoral behaviour. In public, she is presented as every man’s perfect wife.
That said, Annabel is allowed to be sexually adventurous off-screen, but only within the bounds of her marriage. As far as the public is concerned, Annabel and Frederick are the perfect couple, ‘impeccably formal by the light of day, voluptuously enamoured with each other under the cover of night’. But if the ‘Lady-Tiger’ were discovered to be indulging an extra-marital affair, it would tarnish her public image, taking her out of the running for virtuous, morally upstanding roles.
In many respects, Annabel and Frederick have a workable marriage, charming to the external eye, irrespective of what goes on behind closed doors.
They always patched up their rows, went out together, were accustomed to each other. Moreover, they were proud of each other in the eyes of their expanding world where he was considered to be deeply interesting and she highly talented. (p. 17)
In truth though, the marriage is far from ideal. Both partners have been unfaithful in the past and Frederick has a lover in Rome whom he sees regularly. His jealousy of Annabel’s success is another fly in the ointment, to the point where he is considering leaving Annabel despite their glamorous lifestyle.
Then there is the question of Annabel’s intelligence, another area where double standards apply. Men repeatedly dismiss Annabel as being vacuous and stupid. And yet, if she dares to express an opinion – God forbid, an insightful one – her male colleagues either dismiss it out of order or become defensive in her presence. However, Annabel is far sharper and more intelligent than others give her credit for, and she uses these covert skills to her advantage as this marvellous story unfolds.
The crunch comes when Frederick arranges a wild party at the couple’s flat without Annabel’s knowledge. Hordes of revelling partygoers turn up, knocking back the booze and indulging in drugs. Frederick, however, is elsewhere at this point, staging a spectacular incident designed to bring about Annabel’s downfall out of jealousy and spite. I won’t reveal the details of it here (that would be too much of a spoiler, I think); but save to say, it’s a malicious, carefully constructed scandal involving libelous letters and career-damaging accusations directed at his wife.
When the true extent of these actions becomes apparent, Annabel realises that Frederick has been trying to destroy her public image, largely out of jealousy. However, rather than buckling under the pressure, as Frederick probably expected, Annabel shows her mettle, managing the situation like a true PR professional. It’s a masterclass on how to control and shape the narrative by managing relations with the press to protect one’s reputation – and Annabel, with her instinct, vision and resourcefulness, handles it all brilliantly.
Something that Spark does so well here is to highlight the importance of perception in shaping reputations. In some respects, the truth is irrelevant; what counts is how the public see things, and these beliefs have the potential to make or break someone’s career. The right kind of publicity can enhance a person’s standing in the public eye, but the wrong sort might destroy it overnight, irrespective of what has happened before. By exploring Annabel’s situation, Spark also shows us just how easy it is to fall into the trap of tacking a particular course of action for the sake of one’s reputation, even if it means sacrificing certain principles along the way.
As this excellent novella draws to a close, Spark finds a way for Annabel to stay true to her values, even if it damages her acting career. By leveraging her shrewdness and agency, Annabel chooses to stay in control rather than bowing to external pressure. While I would be hesitant to call The Public Image a feminist novella, there is a touch of feminism in the ending as Annabel refuses to be blackmailed by a man.
In short, then, this is an excellent, sharply observed novel about the benefits and pitfalls of curating a carefully constructed but false public image in the celebrity culture age. It’s also very funny at times, especially when the realities of this marriage are subject to broader scrutiny. I’ll finish with Annabel’s response to Luigi (the film producer) when he suggests she change her public image, given Frederick’s scandalous (but entirely false) accusations.
‘No, I don’t like fun, quite honestly. There was no harm in the story of my being a tiger-woman in bed with Frederick, because it was all supposed to be within our marriage. We were married, after all. But in fact, I don’t like tiger-sex. I like to have my sexual life under the bedclothes, in the dark, on a Saturday night. With my nightdress on. I know it’s kinky, but that’s how I like it.’ (pp. 125–126)
The Public Image is published by Virago Press; personal copy.
While looking through my shelves for suitable books for #WITMonth, I found this collection of ten short stories by classic Italian writers, which I’d picked up earlier this year in a sale. Curated and edited by Jhumpa Lahiri, the book is an off-shoot of The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, a more extensive collection containing forty stories representing a wealth of styles and voices, including several writers from the 20th century.
The smaller volume, entitled Great Italian Stories, comprises ten stories with the original Italian text and English translation presented side-by-side on opposing pages, primarily to help students and interested readers improve their language skills. (It’s an interesting approach, and Penguin has published similar volumes of parallel texts focusing on Spanish and Japanese short stories in the same series.)
When I looked inside the book, I discovered, to my delight, that six of the stories were written by women, and with #WITMonth in full swing, these are the stories I’m focusing on here. Four writers – Natalia Ginzburg, Alba de Céspedes, Elsa Morante and Lalla Romana – were already familiar to me as I’d read and enjoyed novels by all four. However, I hadn’t come across the remaining two women writers, Fausta Cialente and Grazia Deledda, who were critically acclaimed in their day.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, women’s lives feature strongly in several of these pieces. However, Cialente’s and Deledda’s stories both focus on male protagonists, adding an element of variety across the collection as a whole.
Elsa Morante’s The Ambitious Ones (tr. Erica Segre and Simon Carnell) features a strained mother-daughter relationship, similar in style to many of Natalia Ginzburg’s slim novellas about the tensions that often emerge across the generations. When Angela Donato’s eldest daughter, Concetta, receives a marriage proposal from a prestigious hotelier’s son, she envisages a grand wedding and a bright future for the girl.
She could already see Concetta installed in the entrance of the hotel, in a velvet wedding dress, with a brooch of rubies, welcoming the guests with sovereign affability; and herself wearing a fur stole, feathers and bracelets, visiting her daughter, fanning herself in the drawing room. (p. 85)
Concetta, however, has other ideas, quickly rejecting the young man’s offer. Unlike her frivolous, materialistic mother, Concetta only has eyes for the church, defying her family’s wishes by entering the local convent as soon as she comes of age. As far as Angela is concerned, her eldest daughter no longer exists, and she rejects the girl’s lovingly crafted gifts sent home on a regular basis. But when Concetta falls seriously ill, Angela knows she must rush to her daughter’s side in the hope of being able to save her… It’s an evocative, affecting tale full of vivid imagery.
In Natalia Ginzburg’s powerful story My Husband (tr. Paul Lewis), a young woman agrees to marry an older man she barely knows to escape from a boring life with her sister and aunt. Although our narrator barely knows her future husband – a respected doctor – she hopes to come to love him in time. The marriage, however, is far from perfect. It turns out that the husband is obsessed with a former patient, a seventeen-year-old girl whom he still meets in the woods for sex despite his marriage and young family.
I sat on the sofa where just a little while ago he had told me that we had learned to live together. I understood now what he had meant by this. He had learned to lie to me, and it didn’t bother him any more. My presence in his house had made him worse, and I too had got worse by living with him. I had become dried up and lifeless. I wasn’t suffering, and I didn’t feel any pain. I too was lying to him: I was living by his side as if I loved him, when really I didn’t love him; I felt nothing for him. (p. 67)
A development in this adulterous relationship ultimately ends in a tragedy, and while at first this might appear to be a blessing in disguise for Ginzburg’s protagonist, any glimmers of hope are short-lived. There are no winners in this tragic scenario; nevertheless, Ginzburg leavens her tale with the occasional dry note of humour, so characteristic of her style. In this passage, the narrator is describing life with her sister and aunt before the fateful wedding…
Our existence was monotonous; besides keeping the house clean and embroidering large tablecloths, which we didn’t know what to do with once they were finished, we didn’t have much to keep us occupied. Ladies would come to visit us sometimes and we would all talk all day about those tablecloths. (p. 47)
Invitation to Dinner by Alba de Céspedes (tr. Michael F. Moore) is another acutely observed story, set in the days following the liberation of Northern Italy at the end of WW2. When a British Officer, Captain Smith, drives an Italian man, Lello, from Turin to Rome, the man’s family show their gratitude by inviting the Officer to dinner. At first, all is well. Captain Smith seems very personable, and his hosts have laid on a lavish dinner to mark Lello’s return. Nevertheless, what should be a joyous occasion is spoilt, for one of the hosts at least, when the talk turns to politics. For Lello’s sister-in-law, the Officer’s pronouncements are irritating and presumptive, showing a lack of sensitivity and understanding for everything the Italian people have suffered during the conflict.
At a certain point, in a paternal and affectionate way, he said, ‘You have to wait for the world to form a better opinion of you, or rather for it to regain a certain trust after twenty years of Fascism. For the moment, it’s best not to rush things. You have to work hard and demonstrate through your politics, through your civilisation, that you’re a people who deserve to be helped. (p. 107)
It’s a thought-provoking story laced with sorrow and anger.
In Lalla Romana’s The Lady (tr. Jhumpa Lahiri), a woman becomes fascinated by an intriguing man she observes in a hotel dining room, to the point where he becomes the object of her fantasies. I loved the set-up of this one, but the payoff didn’t quite deliver for me.
Grazia Deledda’s The Hind (tr. Erica Segre and Simon Carnell) has the feel of a folk tale as a man tries to befriend a female deer who appears to be looking for her fawns. Finally, Fausta Cialente’s story Malpasso (tr. Jenny McPhee) is well worth a mention. In this one, an elderly man who frequents the local café, primarily to get away from his poisonous, ugly wife, tries to convince the regulars that she was beautiful in her youth. However, his friends lose respect for the man when his story is discovered to be false. I really enjoyed this tale, particularly Deledda’s evocative prose with its beautiful descriptions of the café’s mountainside location.
The red velvet upholstery covering the seats along the walls was shabby, the planks in the wooden floor were loose, the mirrors foggy. But the town was beautiful and, in the spring, the mild sky was further softened by the clouds, while mists rising of the river drifted across the hills. In winter, the river froze between banks of hardened snow, and at night one heard the ice cracking. (p. 125)
While Great Italian Stories is probably best suited to readers looking to develop their language skills, it does offer a worthwhile introduction to ten classic Italian writers in translation – six of whom are female. (For completeness, the male writers featured in the collection are Italo Calvino, Elio Vittorini, Alberto Savinio and Umberto Saba.) That said, I would recommend the following novels ahead of these stories for those interested in the writers concerned:
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