Jonathan Buckley: Nostalgia (Sort Of Books)

Sunday 3 March 2013

CASTELLUCCIO isn't a real town in Tuscany but stirs so convincingly into life in Jonathan Buckley's eighth novel that you begin to wonder whether, in fact, it does exist somewhere, perhaps in the vicinity of San Gimignano and Siena.

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NOSTALGIA By Jonathan Buckley (Sort Of Books, £12.99) Reviewed by Russell Leadbetter

The history, geography, appearance, buildings, folklore and many of the residents of this quietly picturesque backwater are evoked with considerable panache by Buckley – who, as it turns out, knows Italy well, having been involved with a number of Rough Guides travel books (The Rough Guide To Italy, incidentally, observes that in Tuscany's neighbouring region, Umbria, there is a Castelluccio, a "desperately isolated village" above the Piano Grande prairie).

The Tuscan Castelluccio's best-known resident is Gideon Westfall, a London-born artist of some repute, whose works feature in many private collections and who has lived in the town since 1993. Westfall, who has a loyal personal assistant, Robert Bancourt, dedicates himself to his art, and to a daily schedule, the details of which are inscribed in stone, and drives an ancient "butter-coloured Mercedes ... in museum-quality condition".Unexpectedly, into his ordered life comes a woman, Claire Yardley. "Catalogue clothes. Headmistress of a primary school in the depths of Surrey," is Robert's cool initial appraisal. But she is his niece, there to find out, if she can, why he turned his back on his family in England and why there was an irreparable breach between Westfall and his brother David, Claire's father. At the same time, a strong-willed local girl, Ilaria, who has done some modelling for Westfall, has disappeared.That, in essence, is the outline of Nostalgia. As with many of Buckley's books, it is an excellent character study and we gradually learn more about Westfall, Bancourt and Claire and their relationships. When we first meet her, Claire is slightly gauche and self-conscious. She knows nothing about art and soon confesses to Bancourt her conviction that Westfall thinks her a dullard, while she on the other hand thinks he is rather too full of himself.We come to know Claire better as the story progresses, as do Westfall and Bancourt.Although niece and uncle have little in common other than blood ties, he repeatedly disrupts his routine to spend time with her, in defiance of Bancourt's early observation to Claire that "nothing short of his own funeral will break the schedule". Indeed, the developing relationship between Westfall and Claire is handled particularly well. Buckley, whose CV includes a spell researching the work of the Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay, is an accomplished writer, with the confidence to interrupt his narrative in order to describe, at length, Castelluccio's religious visionaries and other characters from its past, so that we can build, layer by layer, a sense of the town's history. On occasion the detours shift forward in time to give cameo roles to everything and everyone from the local priest to a wild boar, and it says much for Buckley's skills that such meanders rarely strike you as distracting or unnecessary. By its poignant conclusion, this affecting, inventive novel is enough to make you hunt down Buckley's previous works if this is the first time you have come across him.

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Jonathan Buckley: Nostalgia (Sort Of Books)

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