Novel set in Rome (“..strange, unfathomable winds that blow people one way rather than the other”)
- Book: Early One Morning
- Location: Rome
- Author: Virginia Baily
A layered story that threads its way through the streets of the Eternal City, from 1943 in the midst of war forward to the 1970s, two very different periods in the history of this beautiful and multifaceted metropolis.
The book starts at a time of war. Fear pervades the citizens, the Germans have taken over the city and they are beginning to transport the Jews out of the Ghetto. Whilst one small family is being herded, Chiara seizes the opportunity to help counter the terrible events by offering to take and hide little Daniele Levi. As his family is wrested from their home, she ushers him away from the horrors of the Ghetto and takes him to her own home. And there they settle down to a life of family routine, with Chiara in loco parentis, protectively overseeing her small charge along with with Cecilia, her younger sister.
But the little boy’s history and Chiara’s love and indulgence of him combine into a potent mix that sees him going off the rails as he grows into a young, attractive man. He takes her jewellery to pay debts, he becomes a drug user, he thieves. He absents himself for hours, and then days, and finally disappears altogether. Her friends keep an ear out for his whereabouts but Chiara has to move on with her life for her own sanity, surprisingly supported by Simone, her father’s lover.
A parallel story is emerging in Cardiff where Maria learns that the father, who has been a parent to her for all her 16 years, is actually not her birth father. She learns that Daniele is in fact her father. Her shock at the discovery prompts her to seek out Chiara and eventually she is aboard the cross channel ferry heading for Rome, to live with Chiara and immerse herself in Roman life and find out more about who she is – and who Daniele was… and perhaps is….
The backdrop of Rome through the seasons is voluptuously rendered, from Trastevere to Via dei Cappellari (where the cover photo is set), across the Campo de’ Fiori and right up to the Janiculum, where Daniele leaves notes for his family, tucked in and around the statue of Anita Garibaldi. Maria in Rome is riveted by the sensation of the city, simple acts like throwing open the shutters of a morning and imbibing the scene and sun as they penetrate the dark apartment, compared to the sensory disappointment of drawing the curtains back in dull Cardiff. It is a different life in Rome, a life full of vibrancy, heat, and antiquity – and as a reader you are part of the story. The city is realistically and evocatively rendered throughout: “A great expanse full of cars and coaches, traffic police, buses and darting people, and beyond them a huge white staircase leading up to a palace set in high, the ruins of more ancient buildings off to the side, other splendid domed buildings dotted about, an impossible-to-absorb extravagance of the ancient and the beautiful and the stuff of now, all thrown in together.” That definitely conjures up Rome for me!
The story moves back and forth between time periods and this works effectively for the most part, although occasionally the narrative slides a little off centre, and meanders into descriptive detail and events that can be distracting. But the book’s storyline soon returns to riveting form. A ‘must read’ to explore Rome through fiction!
This review first appeared on our blog, where we also chat to the author about Rome and writing
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