Fiorella De Maria's novel is fuelled by the imperfections of point of view and dual narrative. A fictional auto-biography takes on a detective-novel guise when musician Francesca Saliba decides to return to Malta in the early 1990s after a 10-year absence.
Following the tragic death of her beloved Maltese father in suspicious circumstances, a shocked and bewildered 11-year-old Francesca was unceremoniously bundled off to live with her uncle in a sleepy village in rural England. Fr William, a Catholic parish priest, found himself the reluctant guardian of a headstrong girl whose fiery Mediterranean temper and longing for her native home caused many a colourful culture clash over the first year or so that Francesca spent in his care. A little girl sharing the parish rectory with a supposedly respectable man of the cloth would make any gossip's tongue wag, and thus Fr William's daughter was born.
A present-day Francesca addresses the readers, inviting them to share her journey to the past by opening up a window on her world. What follows is a first person narrative coloured by Francesca's point of view and perception of how the events leading up to her father's accident unfolded.
These often occur as flashbacks triggered by encounters and scenes she comes across in her present day investigation. She admits that she is an unreliable narrator and keeps reminding us of her uncertainty till the very end; however there is one thing that she is sure of - that someone had her father killed. It is this conviction that brings her back to Malta with a cautious Fr William in tow, in an attempt to discover the truth.
The story develops by means of sections recounted by Francesca, which are inter-cut by a third-person narrative of Francesca's first year in the village of West Somerford. The omniscient narrative voice here takes on an almost motherly quality when it comes to describing Francesca's mishaps and seems to lay the blame on the events which led to her exile as well as the unforgiving and rather intolerant rural society where she makes her new home. One can notice a similarly accusatory tone used by Francesca herself in her own recollections and comments. If Ms De Maria were simply using a technique to give Francesca's character a new dimension, I would not have any qualms about it.
However, I fear that the narrative persona here merges a tad too much with the authorial one to be completely free from De Maria's own ideas; leading me to believe that there must be an ulterior motive to the occasionally thinly disguised socio-political criticism.
Setting is important in most novels and this is no exception. Set against the backdrop of Malta in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when our country was in the throes of the social, political and economic rebirth the effects of which would be forever etched in our collective memory, Father William's Daughter runs us through the whole gamut of infamous national incidents during a time of international recession, which left most of Europe reeling. From the doctors' strike and medical students' exodus to the arson of The Times and The Sunday Times building and chocolate rationing, we see everything through the eyes of a child whose father is busy putting up a resistance against what Francesca defines as the injustices of the time.
She revelled in being his only confidante and secret helper, running surreptitious errands and overhearing more than was good for her. It certainly seems as though Ms De Maria is using the setting and narrative as a way of making a clear social comment and it is not difficult to see what ideological affiliations she has.
Nothing wrong with this in itself of course, but the picture she paints of Francesca's Maltese family is that of a rare bourgeois one, with a professional father, a lawyer, educated at a British boarding school, married to a middle-class Englishwoman and living in Sliema, so that the girl's upbringing is atypical from the start.
As Francesca delves deeper into her past, she uncovers a disturbing truth - that the motives behind her father's death are closer to home than she believed and that he is the victim, not of a political vendetta but rather, a personal one. The novel contrasts the characters of uncle and niece quite well, with the former the epitome of the compromise and patience typical of a philosopher and theologian and the latter exposing an impulsive, artistic temperament. What I didn't like was the constant title heralding "The events Fr Arrowsmith would have recorded in his memoirs had he ever had the time to write them".
This gives the impression of being terribly pat and leads to an insecurity of narrative technique, as though the author were afraid of relying on her narrative skills to get the message across, thereby fragmenting the flow of the narrative in an unintentional and consequently ineffectual manner.
The style itself, however, is very readable without coming across as facile - always a plus point as it avoids patronising the reader while making the plot more accessible. All in all, it's a well-presented, pleasant middle-brow read, which just goes to prove that the home-grown can be pretty good.
• Mr Delicata is a teacher and freelance writer, with a Master's degree in English Literature.
• A review copy of this title was supplied by Allied Publications.
Following the tragic death of her beloved Maltese father in suspicious circumstances, a shocked and bewildered 11-year-old Francesca was unceremoniously bundled off to live with her uncle in a sleepy village in rural England. Fr William, a Catholic parish priest, found himself the reluctant guardian of a headstrong girl whose fiery Mediterranean temper and longing for her native home caused many a colourful culture clash over the first year or so that Francesca spent in his care. A little girl sharing the parish rectory with a supposedly respectable man of the cloth would make any gossip's tongue wag, and thus Fr William's daughter was born.
A present-day Francesca addresses the readers, inviting them to share her journey to the past by opening up a window on her world. What follows is a first person narrative coloured by Francesca's point of view and perception of how the events leading up to her father's accident unfolded.
These often occur as flashbacks triggered by encounters and scenes she comes across in her present day investigation. She admits that she is an unreliable narrator and keeps reminding us of her uncertainty till the very end; however there is one thing that she is sure of - that someone had her father killed. It is this conviction that brings her back to Malta with a cautious Fr William in tow, in an attempt to discover the truth.
The story develops by means of sections recounted by Francesca, which are inter-cut by a third-person narrative of Francesca's first year in the village of West Somerford. The omniscient narrative voice here takes on an almost motherly quality when it comes to describing Francesca's mishaps and seems to lay the blame on the events which led to her exile as well as the unforgiving and rather intolerant rural society where she makes her new home. One can notice a similarly accusatory tone used by Francesca herself in her own recollections and comments. If Ms De Maria were simply using a technique to give Francesca's character a new dimension, I would not have any qualms about it.
However, I fear that the narrative persona here merges a tad too much with the authorial one to be completely free from De Maria's own ideas; leading me to believe that there must be an ulterior motive to the occasionally thinly disguised socio-political criticism.
Setting is important in most novels and this is no exception. Set against the backdrop of Malta in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when our country was in the throes of the social, political and economic rebirth the effects of which would be forever etched in our collective memory, Father William's Daughter runs us through the whole gamut of infamous national incidents during a time of international recession, which left most of Europe reeling. From the doctors' strike and medical students' exodus to the arson of The Times and The Sunday Times building and chocolate rationing, we see everything through the eyes of a child whose father is busy putting up a resistance against what Francesca defines as the injustices of the time.
She revelled in being his only confidante and secret helper, running surreptitious errands and overhearing more than was good for her. It certainly seems as though Ms De Maria is using the setting and narrative as a way of making a clear social comment and it is not difficult to see what ideological affiliations she has.
Nothing wrong with this in itself of course, but the picture she paints of Francesca's Maltese family is that of a rare bourgeois one, with a professional father, a lawyer, educated at a British boarding school, married to a middle-class Englishwoman and living in Sliema, so that the girl's upbringing is atypical from the start.
As Francesca delves deeper into her past, she uncovers a disturbing truth - that the motives behind her father's death are closer to home than she believed and that he is the victim, not of a political vendetta but rather, a personal one. The novel contrasts the characters of uncle and niece quite well, with the former the epitome of the compromise and patience typical of a philosopher and theologian and the latter exposing an impulsive, artistic temperament. What I didn't like was the constant title heralding "The events Fr Arrowsmith would have recorded in his memoirs had he ever had the time to write them".
This gives the impression of being terribly pat and leads to an insecurity of narrative technique, as though the author were afraid of relying on her narrative skills to get the message across, thereby fragmenting the flow of the narrative in an unintentional and consequently ineffectual manner.
The style itself, however, is very readable without coming across as facile - always a plus point as it avoids patronising the reader while making the plot more accessible. All in all, it's a well-presented, pleasant middle-brow read, which just goes to prove that the home-grown can be pretty good.
• Mr Delicata is a teacher and freelance writer, with a Master's degree in English Literature.
• A review copy of this title was supplied by Allied Publications.