Lead Review

• Book: Six Days In Rome
• Location: Rome, Verona
• Author: Francesca Giacco

Review Author: Tina Hartas

3.5*

Emilia is in Rome for 6 days, on a trip planned as a joint adventure with her former boyfriend, Michael, a man, who, it transpired was married and who decided to focus on his marriage. She nevertheless decides to continue with the trip, making a solo journey.

She is based in Monti and starts to explore the city whilst ruminating on what it means to be a partner in a relationship. She looks back at her time with Michael and further ponders the marriage arrangement between her parents. Her father is a famous musician, who clearly went off on tour in his younger years and had extra marital liaisons, which left her mother in a permanent state of brewing anger. And yet they managed to accommodate his behaviour. Emilia is an artist and battles the shadow of being the daughter of a larger-thanlife musical artist, yet, by the sound of it, she is doing reasonably well.

Now here she is, on her own, experiencing aspects of the city without her anticipated companion. Michael was the main trip planner and although she had visited Rome many years ago with her family, she now has to reacquaint herself with the rhythm of the city. Loneliness and contentment dovetail and she is at some level quite happy to explore and make acquaintances, and let herself be carried along by her footsteps, as they echo through the city and as she cleaves her way through the crowds.

The reader accompanies Emilia on her meanderings through the ancient ruins and earth toned buildings, along the Tiber, through Trastevere to Esquilino, passing many of the major sites, all the while noting the colours and nooks and crannies of the city. The narrative is truly literary travel writ large, it is as though you have been and feasted on the essence of the city, both metaphorically and literally.

Emilia as a protagonist feels a little unknowable and sometimes the pace feels a little languorous and unfocussed as she makes her way past iconic edifices and tourist traps. The “Acknowledgements” and “About the Author” at the end contain very matter of fact gratitude and there are only a couple of sentences in the latter – and somehow that paucity of detail is reflected in Emilia’s character, which is definitely subordinate to the luscious descriptions of the city. I really feel I have travelled by book to the Eternal City!

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