The Curfew

The Curfew

Jesse Ball

The Curfew is one of the books that made me want to start this blog.  I read it two years ago and was so blown away that I wrote to the author, something I had never done before.  For months afterwards when people asked me for a book recommendation (I’m an English teacher so I often get asked, and when I don’t get asked I make suggestions anyway) I would say, “The Curfew, it’s the best book I’ve read in years.”  And then a few more months passed.  And when people would ask me for a book recommendation I would say, “The Curfew. It’s the best book I’ve read in years.”  People would ask, “What’s it about?”  And I would reply, “Well, it’s about a father and his daughter.  It’s set in some post-revolutionary city.  There is a puppet show….”

Now, I knew more details, but some of them were insignificant to the question, “What’s it about?”  (Could it be true that the better the book, the more useless the question, “What’s it about?” is?  Maybe it’s just a bad question).    I could tell the questioners about how the father crafts the epitaphs that go on tombstones.  And the daughter is mute. And the father played the violin before music was outlawed.  And that there are parts of the puppet show that might make you cry.  I could say all that, but would that answer the question about what the book is about?  Would that encourage people to pick up the book? 

The point I was trying to make – before I started to veer off-track there -- is that some of the relevant details of the book had faded away and I could only communicate broad outlines.   I felt more and more that I was remembering only vague and fuzzy impressions of some books that I wanted to remember in better detail.   So I decided to create this blog because I’m getting old and for all of the other reasons on the right sidebar.  The Curfew is one of those books I want to always recall precisely.

What’s it about?  Well, it is a story of a father and daughter trying to remain unnoticed in an Orwellian city.  The mother was “taken away for good” one day, and so the accomplished but non-playing  violinist  turned “epitahorist” to raise their mute child.  The father avoids all conflict until, having been promised that there was some news about his wife’s disappearance, he attends a meeting of people eager to overthrow the oppressive ruling authority. He leaves Molly, his daughter, with the across-the-hall elderly couple as he goes to the meeting.  In order to pass the time, Mr. Gibbons, the grandfatherly neighbor and marionette, creates a puppet show with Molly’s help.

But here’s the thing:  The narrative moves back and forth between William’s  clandestine meeting and the puppet show in the Gibbons’ apartment.  It’s unbelievable, really, how the two narratives merge and move forward, together, until the emotional end of the book. It’s a spare book and some details are never fully revealed, so once in a while I found myself re-reading passages and flipping back and forth to try and clear things up.  The writing is so beautiful, evocative, and inventive that I never minded dipping in and out of the book. 

The Curfew shines for me because of the language, the author’s otherworldly imagination and creativity, and the relationship between the father and daughter.  This novel is moving and mesmerizing, and I still recommend it to anyone who will listen.