Here I introduce two translated novellas – the first from Italian, the second from French – about the bond between siblings, survivors of damaging childhoods. They illustrate the difficulties of closing the door on the past.
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A Sister’s Story by Donatella di Pietrantonio translated by Ann Goldstein
The narrator is a teacher of Italian origin, now living in France. She is also a sister, daughter and former wife. While successful in her professional life, none of these family relationships bring the rewards she might want. Her parents are unloving, her seemingly straightforward husband has been unfaithful and her sister is brusque and resentful even as she asks for help, hammering on her door with a nephew our narrator never knew about on her hip.
We’re told that the girls were close in childhood, but I think the evidence must be in another book. (The blurb says A Sister’s Story revisits the places and characters of A Girl Returned which I haven’t read.) I felt a much stronger connection with the tragedy of her marriage, which is more clearly mapped out. I think I’d have found a different novel, A Wife’s Story, much more satisfying, with this strand developed even more.
A Sister’s Story is about two Italian sisters’ tragic failure to make more loving marriages than their parents managed. Thanks to publishers Europa editions for my review copy.
We’re told that the girls were close in childhood, but I think the evidence must be in another book. (The blurb says A Sister’s Story revisits the places and characters of A Girl Returned which I haven’t read.) I felt a much stronger connection with the tragedy of her marriage, which is more clearly mapped out. I think I’d have found a different novel, A Wife’s Story, much more satisfying, with this strand developed even more.
A Sister’s Story is about two Italian sisters’ tragic failure to make more loving marriages than their parents managed. Thanks to publishers Europa editions for my review copy.
The Sky Above The Roof by Nathacha Appanah translated by Geoffrey Strachan
Seventeen-year-old Wolf was trying to find his older sister, Paloma, whom he hasn’t seen for ten years. Now he’s locked up in a detention centre after crashing his mother’s car. It’s not a great place for any teenager, but it’s especially difficult for Wolf, who has an unorthodox ways of managing his anxiety, that some would describe as autistic, although his doctor insists there’s nothing wrong.
His mother, Phoenix, had a difficult childhood. Cursed with unusual beauty and a sweet voice, her parents dressed her like a doll and put her on the stage. Reinventing herself in her teens, even rejecting the name her parents gave her, she’s raised her own two children in an entirely different way. Unfortunately, she hasn’t realised that simply doing the opposite is equally problematic.
Both children are damaged by her hands-off mothering, growing up timid when she tried to make them strong. Phoenix can’t see that, although she’s risen from the ashes of her childhood, her wings are scorched.
This lyrical novel’s jumps in time and point of view are slightly disorientating, but strongly illustrate the interconnections between people and how the past is always present if incompletely processed. They also clue us in to how Wolf might experience his world. I loved the psychology and the pathos: the genesis of secure versus insecure attachments and how we can harm others when we think we’re doing good.
I also loved it for the echoes of the themes in my own fiction: Diana in Sugar and Snails has also forged a new identity in adolescence, although her blind spots and as damaging as Phoenix’s; Steve in Underneath never planned to keep a woman captive; Henry has never stopped hoping for a reunion with his older sister, although in Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home she’s been gone for fifty years.
Thanks to publishers Maclehose Press for my review copy. The Sky Above The Roof is the first contender for Annecdotal’s favourite reads of 2022.
His mother, Phoenix, had a difficult childhood. Cursed with unusual beauty and a sweet voice, her parents dressed her like a doll and put her on the stage. Reinventing herself in her teens, even rejecting the name her parents gave her, she’s raised her own two children in an entirely different way. Unfortunately, she hasn’t realised that simply doing the opposite is equally problematic.
Both children are damaged by her hands-off mothering, growing up timid when she tried to make them strong. Phoenix can’t see that, although she’s risen from the ashes of her childhood, her wings are scorched.
This lyrical novel’s jumps in time and point of view are slightly disorientating, but strongly illustrate the interconnections between people and how the past is always present if incompletely processed. They also clue us in to how Wolf might experience his world. I loved the psychology and the pathos: the genesis of secure versus insecure attachments and how we can harm others when we think we’re doing good.
I also loved it for the echoes of the themes in my own fiction: Diana in Sugar and Snails has also forged a new identity in adolescence, although her blind spots and as damaging as Phoenix’s; Steve in Underneath never planned to keep a woman captive; Henry has never stopped hoping for a reunion with his older sister, although in Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home she’s been gone for fifty years.
Thanks to publishers Maclehose Press for my review copy. The Sky Above The Roof is the first contender for Annecdotal’s favourite reads of 2022.
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