HOW THE GHOSTS OF ROME CAME TO ME
Very soon into the writing of my last novel, My Father’s House, I realised that the book would be one of a series of three novels set in Rome in 1943 and ’44, at the time of the resistance to the German occupation of the city. The Ghosts of Rome is the second in that series.
The books are designed to stand alone or as part of a loose trilogy. People from one novel appear in the pages of another, strolling in and out, sometimes quarrelling, often laughing. Throughout the three books, all the most important characters are activists of ‘The Choir’, my fictional version of the Rome escape line set up and led by Irish priest Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty to help fugitives from fascism, including escaped Allied prisoners. Hugh is the central protagonist of My Father’s House, a book in which he meets and begins a friendship with a troubled young Italian war widow, Countess Giovanna Landini. In The Ghosts of Rome, Giovanna – her friends nickname her ‘Jo’ because of her fondness for Jo March in Little Women – steps into the spotlight of her own book.
Giving Jo a story of her own felt a pleasure and an honour. I wrote The Ghosts of Rome in late 2023 and throughout 2024, a time when the world had troubles aplenty, so it was good to be reminded every day as I sat down at the desk that there are now and have always been people of Jo’s values and strengths. People who give you hope.
She is a tough, kind, independently minded woman, funny and disobedient, frail and courageous, indomitable of spirit, a great friend to have in your corner. Sustained by a religious faith that is not shared by all those who love her, and by a passion for art and music and beauty, she is a woman who brings people together around the lasting things of life.
If I had to pick one favourite piece of writing – which thank God I don’t! – it would be Brian Friel’s short masterpiece Faith Healer. It’s wise, funny, sad, moving, strange, poetic, highly accessible. Anyone who has seen it on stage will never forget it. Every year I ask my writing students at University of Limerick to read it. One of the things that’s most compelling about Faith Healer is that it’s essentially the same story told by three different characters. Which means, of course, that it isn’t the same story at all. Each person’s perspective on the events of the plot is an individual, unique experience.
All of my own books, from Star of the Sea onwards, have tended to have multiple characters or perspectives, hence my writing this trio of Rome novels through which the same people come and go. Living in Rome for a few months while researching the books was a truly wonderful experience. Often, I thought I glimpsed Giovanna Landini, crossing a piazza or eating ice cream or reading a fashion magazine outside a cafe. I saw her in the colosseum, through the incense in a church where people stood in silent awe before a Caravaggio mural. I looked at the paintings she looked at, heard the operas she loved, strolled the little streets of Trastevere in her shadow.
I hope you enjoy spending time with Jo Landini, as I did.
Grazie mille!
You can now pre-order The Ghosts of Rome on dubraybooks.ie
