Live Bait Paperback – 3 July 2014

Live Bait is set in a fictional inland Tuscan town of Muglione. It is a sleepy, unattractive town; the main recreations seem to be fishing in the irrigation ditches and cycling. The cover, showing a stunning coastal town is somewhat misleading.The star of the story is 19 year old Fiorenzo. He had been a cyclist until he lost his right hand in a fishing accident. Fiorenzo, who narrates most chapters in first person, is acutely self-conscious of his missing hand and resents the inconveniences it presents – whilst trying to persuade both himself and the reader that he is managing with stoicism.Fiorenzo’s father is a cycling coach and he was disappointed when Fiorenzo was no longer going to be a competitive rider. However, his disappointment is tempered by the arrival of a young cycling prodigy, Mirko, who seems to be pushing Fiorenzo out of the nest. As the novel progresses, Mirko starts to become the second significant character, sometimes narrating his own chapters and sharing his school essays.The third main character is Tiziana, Mirko’s thirty year old teacher. Tiziana is very bored and Fiorenzo is in need of, um, companionship… Tiziana narrates variously through her blog and through the irritating use of second person present. She pops up after several chapters of Fiorenzo narration and it is not immediately clear what is going on or that this is a new narrator. Tiziana offers Fiorenzo an opportunity to explore his angst, but as a character she feels like a bit of a dead weight. All the spark is between Fiorenzo and Mirko.So what actually happens? The answer is not much. This is a kind of bored teenager in a village kind of rambling – the kind of thing William Trevor or Patrick McCabe might have written. Fiorenzo is endearing, sometimes very funny, but he doesn’t do or say anything profound. He does teenage things like rowing with his father, hanging out with his mates, helping out in the family shop that sells fish bait – mostly worms and maggots that make a disgusting noise as they writhe and climb on top of one another only to give up when they realise there’s no benefit to being on top (metaphor, anyone?).Live Bait is a gentle novel, pretty long and undemanding. I doubt readers are going to learn terribly much about the human condition from it, but it is a pleasant read.