Early One Morning by Virginia Baily

When I started my blog Book Chats with Salomé I decided to only ever write about the books that had a positive impact on me in some way or another – and never about books that I did not enjoy.

I will, however, mention one book that I really didn’t enjoy – simply because it is largely owing to this book that I stumbled upon another gem, so ultimately did have a positive impact. I’m referring to My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent. A book that enjoyed a rapturous reception and many accolades as a debut novel, but which so upset, overwhelmed and depressed me by its thorough, graphic and grim descriptions of the most brutal family violence possible that I simply had to seek some light relief in my Second World War library. Which led me to Virginia Baily’s second novel Early One Morning.

I know, like many of you I’m sure, I am also somewhat weary of WWII novels, but Early One Morning is different. There is something surprising and original about Baily’s approach which is at once heart breaking and uplifting.

The novel presents interesting and colourful characters and is rich with beautiful prose and descriptions of Italy and the various treasures to be found in Rome, including its iconic architecture, food and cultural history.

Set in Italy in 1943 during the round-up of Jews in Nazi-occupied Rome, two women make eye-contact and come to an instant and silent agreement – to save a young life. One gives up her 7-year-old son to the other for safe-keeping.

Chiara Ravello is a young woman and member of the resistance movement who has just lost her mother and father and is looking after her afflicted sister. She is the one who grabs Daniele Levi off the truck, proclaims him her nephew and therefore not Jewish. With a silent promise to his Jewish mother, she undertakes a task that will change her life.

The story of Chiara and Daniele is framed by a second narrative, which is set in Rome in the 1970s where Chiara, now in her sixties, lives alone in one half of her family’s old apartment. She has lost her sister and is estranged from Daniele. She deals with loss and is riddled with guilt about the role she might have played – after her abrupt induction into motherhood – in alienating the two people she loved most. It is when Maria, a young girl from Wales contacts her and claims that she is Daniele’s daughter, that everything changes for Chiara.

Through the similarities of Maria and Daniele’s stories, one realises the importance of identity, of the sense of belonging. While it describes the impact of the Nazi occupation on Italy’s Jews, the writer uses the Holocaust more as a backdrop to tell a story about adoption, of being torn from a family, and the confusion that stems from a loss of identity.

I enjoyed Baily’s style of writing and the clever way in which she trusts the reader to find the core message in her novel despite seeming to leave out much detail and specifics. And I am reminded of how the choices we make during the inevitabilities of life (such as war) can often determine the outcome of the rest of our lives.