This is a mesmerising, powerful book. It is superbly written with the language evocative and visually exciting.

The themes of the book include the inspiration for art, whether the restoration of an art work actually preserves it or rather destroys its ‘aura’ (for example do the modern day pieces of marble fitted onto the Pieta really help?) and what makes a work of art iconic ? (for example, the Pieta, Bernini’s St Theresa, Leonardo’s Mona Lisa).

The book also looks at despair and attempted destruction of artworks. As well, there is the distinction between European and Australian First People’s arts as exemplified by the Empress Josephine’s garden, Michaelangelo’s Pieta and Bernini’s St Theresa, and the work of Kumanjayi.

There is also the interlocking of art and life, the quest for a feeling of self and identity and the stressful relationships between children and parents.

While Fitzgerald’s book jumps backward and forward in time, the dates are clearly stated so there is no confusion and the story remains easy to follow.

Fitzgerald’s book is set in the last months and days of 1999, at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, as the world awaits the new millennium,(remember the fear about the Y2bug).

We meet Lucy, a young Australian woman who observes Michelangelo’s ‘Pietà’ behind its pane of bullet-proof glass after the 1972 attack by Lazslo Toth ; a red kabbalah string circling her wrist. She has arrived with the unopened mysterious parcel her recently deceased mother Jude asked her to bring, and delivers it to the box marked POSTE VATICANE.

Before reading about Lucy in Rome , we follow Lucy’s life in Saint-Cloud in France where, on the outskirts of Paris, Lucy works as an au pair for Jean-Claude and his wife Mathilde , looking after their baby son Felix.

When Mathilde, an artist, departs for Central Australia to research the Aboriginal artist Kumanjayi, Lucy’s circle of contacts is reduced and becomes far closer : Jean-Claude, baby Felix, and the couple’s dynamic, fascinating friend Sébastien, a marble restorer.

Lucy’s homesickness for Australia and its vastness pervades her world, surfacing in the memories of her mother, the Australian garden at Empress Joséphine’s Malmaison ( the smell of wattle and eucalyptus! Black swans!), and Mathilde’s letters from Alice Springs.

While at Malmaison we learn about the rather ill-fated explorative voyages of Baudin , who was pipped at the post by Captain Cook in the European ‘discovery’ of the south coast of Australia.

Lucy’s mother, Jude, who was a nun in the 1970s, once warned her daughter ‘to be careful what she wished for’. But that rarely affects the decisions the characters make, whether be it for good or for bad.

Fitzgerald’s book ends with hopes of a new life , and further secrets to be revealed.

Highly recommended.

Michael Fitzgerald’s book ‘Pieta’ was released on June 1, 2021.