Family Drama
1940s
Croatia
I’m always drawn to books from the period of and after the Second World
War from an area convulsed by the conflict of which little has been written,
fiction or non-fiction. This sweeping story, centered on the family and closest
friends of Contessa and Ettore Saforo, takes us to one such forgotten corner of
the war, the city of Fiume, one of the Italian possessions along the Dalmatian
coast of present-day Croatia. Occupied by Germans from 1943, much of the
Italian population was forced to flee when the city taken by Tito’s partisan
army at the end of the war. Split apart and shuffled from a Yugoslav prison to
refugee camps in Italy and Germany, the Saforo family and their extended
community of friends are reunited in Trieste, where they finally decide that
their future might be secured by immigration, Australia being the only country
willing to admit them all.
The author shows considerable skill incorporating a much-needed history
lesson on this obscure corner of the war, weaving in her research both in
secondary sources and first-hand accounts from her father and others who
experienced the purge of the Italian populations from this coastal area after
the war. Her facility with laying out and sticking to a complex story with
several interweaving plot lines is both admirable and enviable. The reader is
carried along with her extensive cast of characters, whipsawed from the wild
anxiety of their breakneck flight ahead of an advancing army to cringing fear
in a black dungeon to the stultifying sameness of endless days waiting in
refugee camps for a future that may never come. She also has a knack for
drawing quite believable, three-dimensional child characters, which is
fortunate since her cast includes nearly a dozen by the last third of the
novel.
Overall, the book showed great skill with lucid writing and consistent
voice, the author’s years as a journalist showing through from beginning to
end. Although meticulously proofread, the book would have gained from a
thorough line edit. There were many examples of redundant words or phrases and
repetition of information or description, sometimes within the same paragraph.
This being a first novel, I’m confident this will work itself out as the author
gains confidence in trusting her readers a bit more – but I strongly suggest
she finds herself a good technical editor for her future writing.
Given the way in which the book ends—no spoilers here—it seems likely
the author has a series in mind. This may be why she sometimes lays on the
foreshadowing a little heavily, particularly with the children. Regardless of
these few peripheral weaknesses, this is a ripping good story that will take
you to a familiar time but into a place very few people know much about. It’s
well worth a read.
© Jeffrey K. Walker
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Thank you for your review. I'm glad my story has helped to highlight this little known war. So many people and families were affected. I appreciate the time you have taken to read and review the novel. Best regards,
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