Book
A Fool’s Alphabet
First published 1992
Pietro Russell’s life is told through twenty-six places arranged alphabetically rather than chronologically. The pattern begins before his birth, with his British father wounded in Italy during the Second World War and his Italian mother entering the family story, then moves through Pietro’s childhood in post-war England, schooldays, travel, love affairs and work as a photographer.
Because the chapters continually jump backwards and forwards in time, grief and memory become as important as sequence. Episodes from the Western Front, wartime Italy and the decades after 1945 show how family experience passes from one generation to another while Pietro gradually finds a more stable sense of home and attachment.
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