Sea of Memory

This short, moving but slightly strained coming-of-age tale brings the aftermath of the Holocaust to an idyllic Italian island off the coast of Naples. The nameless narrator recalls a summer vacation there during the 1950s; at the age of 16, he learns to fish, falls in love, and discovers the long aftermath of World War II. Eschewing the company of foreign tourists and younger children, he finds a teacher of life in Nicola, a local fisherman who communicates his love of the sea and his memories of war to the boy yearning for knowledge. Attracted by the older, more mysterious girls on the island, the narrator falls in love with Caia, who shares her secret with him: she's Jewish, saved by Italian soldiers from the Nazis who killed the rest of her Yugoslav family. Caia thinks that the narrator shares her father's mannerisms, and may be his reincarnation. Initiated into seamanship by one vicious fish bite and a torrential night expedition, the boy is finally inspired to manifest his newfound manhood, his passion for Caia and his ardent Italian patriotism in a flamboyant, cataclysmic act of destruction, during which his youth, his summer and his tale come to an end. Without Caia's mystic feeling that he embodies her father's spirit, he might lack sufficient motive for the ambitious destruction with which he brings a sort of Armageddon to the island. Nevertheless, the psychic bits hinder what is otherwise an alluring and poignant story about an adolescent in love, in search of himself and of history. Brombert's translation ranges from clear to shimmeringly lyrical. De Luca's other works include three translations from the Hebrew Bible as well as five novels. (Aug.)