The Time in Between
On the island of Sardinia, in 1943, a year of famine, malaria and a plague of locusts, Vincenso Chironi returns to his ancestral home, ‘plucked like Moses from the waters when the Chironi bloodline had seemingly run dry.’ Thus begins the tale of one man’s life and how he both saves and is saved by an island culture struggling to survive change. It is a tale of refugees finding home in one another and of the cycles of destiny and nature. Vincenso finds his grandfather and aunt in the tiny town of Núoro and is welcomed with open arms as the long-lost family member who, they believe, will bring new life to a dying bloodline. When he meets Cecilia ‘nothing could have prevented them falling in love for life.’ Vincenso finds work on the island with his friend Mimmíu, fighting the biblical swarms of locusts and malaria with flamethrowers and DDT. When he marries Cecilia he also brings prosperity back to his family. Some things stay the same: his grandfather gets older, his aunt still has regular conversations with her dead relatives, but other things start to change as the wheel of fortune turns again.
This is a novel about storytelling itself, with a marvellous voice that seems to carry the wisdom, pathos and humour of an epic human tale. The history is presented seamlessly. The characters are vivid, and the descriptive prose is impressive, helping to show the character of Vincenso and his conflicts. There are a few places where it can feel overdone, but there are many where it is sublime. The Time in Between is a thoughtful and entertaining story of the tenacity of one Italian family’s love and continuity in a time when such things could easily disappear.
