cover image A Turn of the Wheel: : A Novel

A Turn of the Wheel: : A Novel

Oliver Friggieri. Wilfion Books, $0 (77pp) ISBN 978-0-905075-25-9

The brief angst-filled tale of Baruch Sammut serves to introduce one of Malta's distinguished contemporary writers and the problems inherent to his tiny country. The novel opens with Baruch's grief at the death of an idolized young professor with whom, however, he has never exchanged a word. Baruch's obsession with this man occupies much of the story, and leads Baruch to find his own life, studies and family unbearably empty and repressive. Sickened by his own malaise, he enters the seminary in fervent hopes of becoming a priest. When an affair with another seminarian leads to the expulsion of both, Baruch turns to a prostitute who instinctively dismisses his declaration of love for her. Baruch flees from yet another aborted passion. Even his eventual attempt at suicide is botched, leaving him still confined within the strictures he detests. Friggieri's swift, terse prose well suits this tense excursion into a suffering young man's view of a limited society. (Nov.)