William Wall's 'Empty Bed Blues'

William Wall’s collection of poems Smugglers in the Underground Hug Trade was a pleasure, despite it being about that most unpleasurable topic, the first year of the pandemic. Now New Island have published his latest novel, Empty Bed Blues, which shows his facility in this different form.

The narrator is Kate Holohan, who has discovered that old and dismayingly everyday story: her husband has been having an affair with a younger woman. And he has indulged in disastrous financial dealings in a Ponzi scheme. But she cannot even confront him over all he has done, because all this came out after his sudden death in their bathroom at home in Ireland. So she heads towards Camogli, a small port near Genoa (Smugglers also began in Liguria), escaping from the chaos, her job and her sister, and moves into the apartment there she has just discovered her husband owned.

Initially she is driven by anger about him and his ‘beautiful brunette’ lover, but in fact the main developing relationship in the novel is the friendship with her elderly neighbour Anna. In becoming familiar with Anna’s own resilience and her rich past, the outline of what she herself might now be slowly comes into view. This is one of the two central strands of the book, the other being the sensuous evocation of Camogli:

Italian cooking, she says, is based on three ingredients - olio, aglio e prezzemolo - oil, garlic and parsley. You can turn anything into food with those three things.

The ingredients of this novel make for a highly pleasurable experience.

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