Fabio Bartolomei
We Are Family
Trans. Antony Shugaar
Europa EditionsIn We Are Family, Bartolomei uses
humor and a touch of magical realism
to craft a witty but serious story of an
Italian family caught between the glo-
ries of the past and the economic ten-
sions of the present, all while holding
court for the young savant Almerico
Santamaria. Much like Amor Towles’s
A Gentleman in Moscow, the hardest
part about finishing We Are Family is
realizing at its end that the time with
its charming narrator is now done.L. M. Brown
Treading the Uneven Road: Stories
FomiteL. M. Brown, an Irish expat now liv-
ing in the US, revisits the time and
place of life in her native country in
this collection of short stories. These
character-driven pieces enjoy a sim-
plicity of language that directs the
reader to the dialogue, which is natu-
ralistic but resonates with emotion.Nota Bene
Matios often draws from her own past
and seamlessly incorporates history into her
work, allowing her reader to relate to and
engage with Ukraine’s past on an emotional
level and therefore experience therapeutic
healing.
One of the characters, for example, suf-
fers from severe headaches, caused by a
childhood trauma when she was ten years
old, after which she lost her ability to speak.
The triggers of her pain are known to her
and to the community in which she lives.
Her neighbors play a crucial role in nurtur-
ing her back to reality when her condition
spikes—those scenes are truly vivid and vis-
ceral. She, however, finds comfort in nature,
music, and love.
Matios skillfully raises the question of
mental health and explores modern medi-
cine when treating unprocessed trauma. It
does not work and leaves the reader even
closer to Ukraine’s past to be witnessed
through the trauma of a young woman
along with the other characters who drive
the narrative. Matios also brings forward
the importance of the father-daughter rela-
tionship and the feelings of loss, grief, and
guilt and their impact on child develop-
ment. The father figure appears often in
one of her character’s dreams, who truly
believes that he is real. She finds comfort
in reminiscing about the days when her
family was happy and not tormented by
military actions.
Matios’s novel is a true herstory of
Ukraine and of Sweet Darusya’s characters,
who are in constant search of their authen-
tic and compassionate selves.
Natalia Cousineau
Edmonton, CanadaZahia Rahmani
“Muslim”: A NovelTrans. Matt Reeck. Dallas, Texas. Deep
Vellum. 2019. 145 pages.The Algerian-born francophone writer
Zahia Rahmani’s experimental prose poses
a seemingly simple yet complex question:nothing” and then proceeds to enumer-
ate a whole concatenation of what could
be considered personal inadequacies,
insufficiencies of self or of behavior
or effort or expectation, only to find
forgiveness and acceptance in a poet-
ic effort that is deeply persuasive and
imagistically inventive. Another poem,
“Lapse,” which is found among her new
poems, is focused on the profane fact of
the death of loved ones who cannot be
summoned except in the still quietude
of the mind. This poem is so beauti-
fully written that it seems many of her
other poems were all training for this
one. Indeed, if this is any indication of
what is still to come, we have some great
poetry still ahead of us.
What strikes me in reading these
poems chronologically is how the power
of this poet’s imagination and appre-
hension of the unseen deepens as we
proceed through to the end. Given the
early life traumas, this poet’s sanguinity
and earned joy are victories in them-
selves as well as poetic footprints that
show that health can be reached in spite
of pathology and that we can work our
way through pain not just to survival
but to ongoing flourishing.
Fred Dings
University of South Carolina
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