Review

TOP 4 BOOKS TO READ THIS MONTH

NORTHERN SPY By Flynn Berry A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. A psychological thriller set against the Troubles in Northern Ireland. “Breathtaking ... Berry writes thrillingly” New York Times.

THE DRESSMAKERS OF YARRANDARRAH PRISON By Meredith Jaffe Can a wedding dress save a bunch of hardened crims? A sweetly funny and poignant story about finding redemption in unexpected places. We all loved it!

THE KINDNESS REVOLUTION By Hugh Mackay More wisdom from one of Australia’s most loved social commentators. Written for our times, this remarkable book shows how crises and catastrophes often turn out to be the making of us.

THE ROCK FROM THE SKY By Jon Klassen More wonderful humour and strangeness from the author of the I Want My Hat Back series.

A BOOK LOVER’S REVIEW BY JACQUI SERAFIM

Fidelity

by Marco Missiroli

Carlo and Margherita, a married couple in their 30s living in Milan, have a loving and passionate marriage. But Carlo, a part-time lecturer at a university, is infatuated with a 22- year-old student, Sofia, and when another student witnesses the two in what appears to be a compromising situation, Carlo is called before the Dean to explain the situation. The incident becomes known as “the misunderstanding” as Carlo claims it to be – she was unwell and he was helping her – but Margherita knows him well enough to know better. Meanwhile, Margherita has her own fantasies about Andrea - the young, fit and silent physiotherapist who is treating the inflamed tendon in her thigh. But this is not a simple story of marital betrayal – it is a more complex exploration of marital relationships, ego and human frailty. Fidelity is considered not just in physical terms of sexual fidelity but also in terms of emotional fidelity - openness and honesty with one’s partner. This is echoed in the exploration of other relationships in the novel. Although Carlo and Margherita are the couple at the centre of the narrative - many of the other characters face challenges of fidelity in their relationships whether past or present.

Missiroli’s writing is perceptive and unflinching in its delineation of the conflict between selfish short-term desire and commitment to longer term love. The characters are flawed and sympathetic. Carlo’s “hunger for Sofia was becoming an uneasiness that the family hearth prevented him from living fully, half of himself fighting the other half.” While Margherita needs to “be wanted in a primitive way, the way it was before engagements, and altars and mortgages”. The beauty and clarity of expression was, however, occasionally clouded for me by the frequent switching between narrative perspectives. I sometimes found myself forced to reread a page because I had missed a change in narrative focus. The translation was also a little uneven with some sentences and expressions quite difficult to interpret. But don’t let that dissuade you from reading the novel. Missiroli’s delineation of the complexity of human relationships – the desires and conflicts – is sincere and intense.

The novel was not what I had expected from reading the marketing hype. It is frequently pitched as being an erotic story of infidelity but it is much more than that. Missiroli says the book was inspired by his own father confiding that he was faithful to his wife but at a cost of being true to himself. Missiroli explores this idea of whether we can be true to ourselves without betraying the people we love - the cost of both fidelity and that of infidelity. Although the narrative is definitely driven by the conundrum facing both Carlo and Margherita – the focus of the novel is broader than fidelity. It’s about life - love, family relationships, marriage, parenthood, loss and human imperfection.

Fidelity was shortlisted for the Premio Strega (the Italian equivalent of the Booker Prize) and was a bestseller in Italy. It is currently being made into a Netflix series.