There Was a Time for Such a Word

Solla makes his English-language debut with an insightful story of a boy’s transformation in his isolated southern Italian town during WWII. As a teen in Tora e Piccilli, Davide Buonasorte is discouraged by his father, Furtunà, a pig keeper and mushroom hunter, from pursing an education. When Jewish families arrive from Naples on orders from Mussolini, Davide defies the bigoted Furtunà, who insists he stay away from them, and befriends Nicolas, whose father sets up a secret school for Jews. Davide learns to read at the school and is attracted to Teresa, an avid reader and daughter of a local rope maker who, like Davide, longs to leave their town. When Nicolas is scapegoated for an attack on a German truck, Davide hides him. Fearing for his own safety, Davide then leaves for Naples, where he eventually becomes a well-known actor after the war. He never forgets Nicolas or Teresa, and returns to Tora e Piccilli 12 years later, where he makes a surprising discovery. Solla’s simplistic story is enriched by descriptions of the power of language, as when Davide learns from Nicolas how to pronounce maiali, the word for pigs, in “perfect Italian” (“I saw [the animals] from another point of view. I saw the difference between them and us”). It’s an alluring chronicle of a restless young man’s coming-of-age. (Nov.)