Seven survivors of the 1976 Friuli earthquake in northeastern Italy,
which left hundreds dead and thousands unhoused, speak of their lives
after the catastrophe in this poignant, propulsive work of fiction by a
noted poet, translator, and novelist.
Il rombo is an Italian term for the subterranean rumble before an
earthquake. In May and September 1976, two severe earthquakes ripped
through the Friuli region in northeastern Italy, causing extensive
damage. About a thousand people died under the rubble, tens of thousands
were left without shelter, and many ended up leaving their homes
forever.
Rombo is a record of this disaster and its aftermath, as told by seven
men and women who were children at the time: Anselmo, Mara, Olga, Gigi,
Silvia, Lina, and Toni. They speak of portents that preceded the
earthquakes and of the complete disorder that followed, the obliteration
of all that was familiar and known by heart. Their memories, like the
earth, are subject to rifts and abysses. Esther Kinsky splices these
indelible, incomplete recollections with exacting descriptions of the
alpine region, forgoing a linear narrative for a deftly layered collage
that reaches back and forth in time. The brilliantly original book that
emerges is both memorial and purgatorial mount.
