Carmine Abate

I love stories that take me out of myself and teach me things about the world that I never knew. This novel does both. To my fascination, I learned that in southern Italy, there remain villages of Arbëresh-speaking people, descendants of the Albanians who first fled to the region when the Ottoman Turks invaded Albanian lands in the 15th century. I also became more intimately aware of the horrible plight of poor southern Italians who must spend eleven months of the year working in France, show more sometimes under horrible conditions, in order to provide for their families and be able to send their children to college. But primarily, this novel is an uplifting celebration of family, and I was carried away by the power and poetry of the story.

Marco is a boy on the verge of manhood. As the book opens, he and his father, Tullio, are sitting on the steps of the village church watching the Christmas bonfire: "... my father said there'd never been such a fire, a perfect bonfire to toss all our worst memories into, he said, and set fire to them in a flash, and for all time." As they sit watching the fire long into the night, Marco remembers key moments in his childhood, times when his father was home for a brief visit and times when his father's absence was especially painful. Tullio is also in a reflective mood and shares stories of his life in France and the woman whom he loved there, the mother of Marco's older sister, Elisa.

As the story moves back and forth in time, we learn that each of them is holding back a secret, something that involves the older man with whom Elisa has had an affair. As the night progresses, we move closer and closer to understanding that secret and to understanding the maturing relationship between father and son. The dénouement of the story is tender and joyous, and I closed the book slowly, wanting to remain with the family and their village.

Once again, Europa Editions has published an astonishing novel that deserves to be read by an international audience. Sprinkled with Arbëresh words, the novel's setting is distinctly foreign, but the familial relationships, Marco's love for his dog, and the childish pranks are all familiar. I heartily recommend The Homecoming Party, and I look forward to reading another of Abate's novels that has been published by Europa Editions, Between Two Seas. show less

Rating: 2* of five

The Book Report: Childhood in poverty-stricken Calabrian town. Son of a father who works in the coal mines of northern France. Half-brother of a Child of Shame his father brings home. Boy to a dog of noble heart, who survives a wild boar attack.

Oh save me please from this childhood of painful partings and painful reunions and painful illnesses and painful convalescences and painful this and painful that and painful the other goddamned thing.

My Review: Published in Italy show more when the author was 50, in 2004, this book feels as self-important as any roman à clef does. It lays to rest the childhood demons and frustrations of a boy whose father was forced, in the post-war horror of ruin and starvation that was Italy, to go away to find work. It also illuminates a world that, I suspect, is disappearing: That of the Arbëreshë, Albanian Orthodox emigrants fleeing Ottoman oppression, once a minority within a minority in Italy. (Southern Italians aren't terribly highly regarded by the economic elite in the North, and the Arbëreshë are all Calabrian or Sicilian. Hard to get more Southern than that.) I suspect that modern life's media saturation has done for Italy what it's done for the US, which is smoothed out the most dramatic differences in language as more and more people grow up on TV and not stories told by meemaw and poohpoppy.

That would account for the Italian reviews of the book mentioning its “linguistic vibrancy”--Italian, like French, isn't a very open to innovation language, preferring to hive off dialects the way English produces slang. At any rate, I found myself hearing my old and beloved friend Nina as I read along, she who was born in another (Sicilian) town called “Hora” which is simply the word for “our place.” I loved listening to Nina's stories about Hora, and I loved eating the dishes her mama made and she learned not to cook for her Napolitani in-laws and I was endlessly fascinated by the cultural gulf between the Arbëreshë and the Italians and the Americans. Which accounts for both stars, since I found the author's tale about as boring as anything I've ever read in my 52 years of life, which I could feel drawing to a close as yet another dreary anecdote would fail to push the plot, of which if you were wondering there is little sign, in any sort of active direction. I didn't read this in Italian, but the translation is regularly referred to as masterful, and so I assume it's faithful to the original. In which case, I offer one comment on the writing: Pfui.

God, I am sick of childhood, and I thought before this it was just teenhood. Nope. I don't want to read any more books whose focus is on anyone who can't legally drink or vote. If you feel like wallowing in the angst of a boy who doesn't need Clearasil yet, this is a book for you. If you didn't have a Nina in your life to share stories of the Arbëreshë, this book could very well be a revelation to you. I can't in good conscience recommend it, but I won't stand here making the “toxic waste biohazard flee flee for your very life dear goddesses what are you still doing here” face.

Barely. show less

This is a very beautiful little novella that brings the reader to what feels like a very enchanting world, an Arberesh town in Southern Italy. At first, it seems so perfect, but as the protagonist (a young boy, Marco) tells his story, we see that it is a hard life where very few men have jobs. For such a small book, it tells a lot, mostly, focused on Marco's father and how his father must travel to France to work and support his family. The writing is great and the translation seems really show more good, however, the story sometimes alternated from the father's viewpoint (as told by the boy) and then it would flip back to the boy the next paragraph. Sometimes that was hard to follow and hard to understand who was speaking. But overall, it is a wonderful "slice of life" of a small town, its people, food, struggles and relationships. Recommended for something a bit different. show less

The Homecoming Party by Carmine Abate
Translated from the Italian by Antony Shuggar

Caution: Do not read while hungry. Heavy emphasis on Italian food delicacies will leave you a bit weak.

The Homecoming Party tells the story of a father and son, and their close relationship despite geographic distance. It tells of the childhood of Marco, a boy who grows up mostly in the care of his mother and grandmother because lack of work required his father to travel to France. This leaves him as the man show more of the house essentially, although his older half-sister and baby sister ignore him. His father’s infrequent visits are the focus of his life; he spends most of his year awaiting them. His days are filled with school, exploring the rural region with his dog, and playing soccer with his friends.

While they live in Italy, they are ethnically an Albanian village that still speaks the Arbereshe language. It’s from this home region that his father must journey to France, accepting horrifying work conditions just to be able to send money home. He remains faithful to his family, and the distance tears at him. It’s in his absence that his oldest daughter starts to behave strangely, and begins distancing herself from the family.

The story begins with the father returning to the yearly Christmas bonfire in the small village. He’s happy to be home, and generous with food and gifts for the villagers. However, as father and son sit to observe the flames, they discuss the peculiar events of his sister, and flashbacks occur that explain the closer connection between father and son.

This fairly simple story packs an unexpected punch. First, it reminds you of similar people who have to travel to distant lands for work and basic sustenance, and the danger it puts the family in. It also reminds you that danger can be present anywhere, and not just found on a distant shore. Lastly, the power of language, even the difference between a dialect and a language, is revealed in some of the complexities that occur: a battle between the old world and modernization leaves little place for variance.

The plot is strong, as it backtracks through events, and the alternating voices reveal more than just what the child or the father may have understood on their own. A few times, however, I had to back up a several pages to figure out who was speaking, and also get back on track with the timeline of events. Since the father and son are the focus, very little was drawn out about the women in the family and what influenced them: I wish that had been expanded on a bit more as I think it would have helped explain some of the issues. The descriptions of the scenery, and the simple details of family life and delicious food create a lovely backdrop for the moral issues in play. show less