Review | The House at the Edge of Night by Catherine Banner
Since we were young, we've been touched, enchanted and enlightened by stories. From tales softly murmured by parents at bedtime, to books that have you swiping away tears on the subway, stories possess the unique ability to connect us to others, to strike us in the core and linger in our minds. Catherine Banner's The House at the Edge of Night is, at its root, a story about stories, and the way in which they become the closest things we have to miracles in the face of instability, fear and change.
A sweeping multigenerational saga, the novel begins with Amadeo Esposito, a foundling who grows up to become a jobbing physician. Eager to make something of his bare life, he finally finds a post on Castellamare, an island off the coast of Sicily. There, he meets the colourful, communal inhabitants of the island, and eventually buys a bar named the House at the Edge of Night. It is at this bar that he settles and starts his family, and where the next three generations of the Espositos together encounter, among other things, rivalries, romance, wars and scandals.
From the beginning, it is the island of Castellamare that charms and enraptures the reader, infusing the novel with an undeniable sense of magic. Ms. Banner's lush and sensuous writing brings the island to life, as if you can smell the thyme and bougainvillea and feel the salty ocean breeze skim across your skin. An essential part of its allure are the islanders themselves, from Bepe the fisherman-meet-ferryman to the near-blind Signora Gesuina, who form a large, protective, nosy, and Saint-worshipping family, of the sort you only read about in village folktales.
Despite this fantastical, almost otherworldly setting of Castellamare, however, Ms. Banner grounds her novel in history. What she does so masterfully is to strike a fine balance between a lush fairytale and a meaty historical saga, so that the reader, much like the characters, is torn between the romance of island life and the sobering realities of the world beyond. The story, which spans nearly a century, moves through two world wars, economic crises, and modernization in swift succession, and these historical events are so finely-tuned that it can be easy to forget that Castellamare is an imaginary island.
Yet time also seems contained, isolated on the island, operating at its own pace from that of the outside world. Perhaps this is because, in the grander scheme of things, the story refuses to be bogged down by such things as fascism, socialism, modernism or any other -isms, but instead remains rooted in the miracles of the everyday, the narratives that bind people to one another to form a community. Historical events like the Great Depression and the toppling of the Berlin Wall serve simply as time stamps, as contextual forces, while the crux of the storyline remains focused on the islanders and how their lives shift amidst these changes and seismic tremors.
For The House is ultimately a family narrative, following four generations of Espositos across ninety-five years. From Amadeo's daughter Maria-Grazia's childhood struggles with leg braces to her own sons Sergio and Giuseppino's lifelong sibling rivalry, each generation has its own tale to tell, which Ms. Banner unfurls with patience and a sort of quiet magic. These tales, together, form a legacy of stories that takes on near-mythical visages as time passes, binding ancestors to descendants in a way that only shared memories can.
Like postcards from a childhood summer or a book redolent and browned with age, this novel is heady with nostalgia, offering readers a glimpse of the romance of island life. Fusing the real with the fantastical (or perhaps, the other way around), The House at the Edge of Night reminds us of the miracles of the everyday -- an invitation of stories to a getaway of the imagination.
Rating: 4.5/5
This book was part of my "Summer Reading List 2018." Check out what else I recommended here!
