I have just finished reading one of the most gentle, sad, yet heart-warming novels. Deborah Lawrenson’s The Art of Falling had me enthralled from beginning to end. A man leaves home and is not heard of again in twenty years – nothing! His wife regards herself as a widow. His daughter is bewildered, for she and her father had enjoyed a special bond which involved not only the stars, but an abiding interest in the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

That tower, and early attempts to stop it from falling over, is a recurring theme in the novel. The author points out that it seemed a perfect metaphor for the point where uncertainty and inevitability meet, and the link is made between buildings of flawed design and the imperfect blueprint of family life. The relationship between Tom Wainwright, the girl’s father, and a young Italian girl during the dying days of the Second World War is another theme. It is when she receives an invitation via her aunt – her father’s only living relative – to attend the opening of a piazza in Petriana that is to be named after her father, that Isabel – his daughter – decides to visit Italy and see what she can find out about her missing relative.

Why is her mother so against her going to Italy? Why had there been no communication from her father in twenty years? Had he returned to Italy? Why were they naming a piazza after him? What heroic deed had he done?

We begin by knowing only the scant details that Isabel does. As she is embraced by the community her father had known as a young British soldier, she learns more … meets useful people, learns about his relationship with Giuliana … meets a particularly helpful Italian man, Gianni, who tells her We will look for your father … and introduces her to yet another particularly helpful Italian man.

Meanwhile, we return to 1944 and to a period after the war that fills in our privileged reader’s knowledge of Tom Wainwright as a young man, who learns to speak Italian fluently, and who is embraced by the Parini family. We are introduced to Italian meals such as: First there was pasta served with crushed chicken livers and preserved tomatoes, then fried chicken, then rabbit and cauliflower fritters. Then, for dessert, she served walnuts with small glasses of vin santo.

The tower of Pisa threads its way throughout both the historical and the modern sections of the narrative. Isabel learns that her father had indeed returned to Italy. Gianni’s words ring true: If it is true that he came back to Italy then we will find him … no-one knows where he is now. There are no official traces of him. We discover that There is nothing to report about Tom’s whereabouts in Italy … The trail has gone cold.

Her relationship with Matteo deepens … is she unknowingly repeating the actions of her father? Matteo too is involved with the tower of Pisa. He has a child from a former relationship. He helps her to locate Giuliana … a tiny woman. She is in her mid-seventies and her eyes gleam brightly. She is a renowned botanical artist.

What follows is a threading through of tenderness, shock, disbelief, and incredible sadness. The overall impression though is of lives well lived in spite of the obstacles, changes of plan, misunderstandings, and bridging the cultural and linguistic gaps to reach a sense of fulfilment.

I highly recommend that you read this novel which, the author reveals on the opening page, is based on several real events, but the characters are completely fictitious. You won’t regret it.