Kate Furnivall on The Liberation

The town of Sorrento in southern Italy sits high on a clff above the Tyrrhenian Sea, whose waters are so buoyant and warm that you can doze off while floating on its surface. But as author KATE FURNIVALL found, the nearby city of Naples is steeped in a history of danger and wartime poverty. The UK author tells gr her latest novel, The Liberation, was inspired by the secret tunnels, mafia strongholds and the of child street gangs she encountered on a recent visit to the Bay of Naples.

It all started when I was in Italy reseaching my last book, The Italian Wife, which was set near Rome. I popped down south to Sorrento and Naples for a few days and that was it – I fell heart-stoppingly in love. Sorrento is perched high on a cliff edge, surrounded by mountains except where it faces the shimmering expanse of the Bay of Naples. 

Even today, a walk down the town’s main street is a walk straight into the past. It has scarcely changed a jot in hundreds of years, with the great craggy limestone mountains rearing up at each end. Corso Italia is an elegant avenue, narrow by modern standards, with a jumble of ancient elaborate buildings in pink, amber and terracotta. Most are only five storeys high, so they never blank out the intense blue of the sky, and their wrought-iron balconies peer down at the Sorrentini in the street. Only the magnificent terracotta cathedral bell tower soars above all else.

The shops below are small and discreet, interpersed with fascinating tiny woodwork workshops that smell of fish glue. Even the heavy iron lampposts that line the pavements are the same ones that were there  a hundred years ago, and the black basalt flagstones breathe out the scent of generations passing this way for centuries. In the dead of night when there are no cars to blur the image it is as if I havefallen through a wormhole back into a past golden age.

With all that breathtaking beauty and history oozing out of Sorrento, high up on its peaceful cliff and contrasting with the violent heart of Naples beating just across the bay in the shadow of Vesuvius, I couldn’t drag myself away. The Liberation, set in the last months of World War II, was a book I had to write. I had no problem imagining what it would have been like in 1945 because instead of the throngs of modern tourists in their shorts and shades, I pictured the bars bristling with military uniforms, the streets filled with military vehicles and the soldiers whistling at the local signorinas. But the atmosphere would be tense beneath the veneer of friendliness – the vanquished face to face with the victors. 

When the war in Europe ended in May 1945, Italy was in chaos. It had been occupied first by German troops, then by the Allied Army.The country had been a savage battleground and Naples, in particular, as a strategic port, had taken a hammering from Allied bombs. Much of the city was in ruins, and families and homes were shattered. No jobs, no infrastructure, no food, and decent women were reduced to selling themselves to the military in exchange for food to put on the table for their children.When people are desperate they resort to crime. Law and order had broken down amid the chaos, although the military struggled to impose their authority on the city. I was lucky to stumble across the brilliant memoir of a British Intelligence army officer, Norman Lewis,which he wrote during the occupation of Naples. It painted a heart-rending picture of the despair of its inhabitants. He also described the Allied Army’s fraught relationship with the inhabitants of the area and the search for the lost treasures that had been looted from the museums and palaces; both play a central role in the fictional story of my protagonist, Caterina Lombardi. The devastation that was Naples in 1945 is the truth that underlies her story. 

But there was another element within Naples that made it a far more dangerous place than elsewhere. And that was the Mafia of Naples, the Camorra.They were the criminal bosses of the city and anyone who dared to oppose them ended up in the Bay of Naples with a set of chains around their ankles.This is the violent underbelly of the city that Caterina has to confront. 

I hired a guide to drive me the half-hour journey into Naple from Sorrento. He was a well-muscled man who inspired confidence in me should trouble of any sort flare up while I was in Naples. Trouble? Well, yes, because Naples is that kind of city. My guide regaled me with scary tales of bribery and corruption at every level of society in Naples. When we drove past the Camorra heartland of the city, where not even police dare to venture, I asked him what would happen if I walked through it on my own. He laughed and said I would definitely be robbed and quite possibly killed. People died there every week, he said casually. There was a sense of danger in Naples that shocked me, an awareness of a line that you must not step over. Even now, the Camorra casts a long shadow over the city. 

My heart was climbing up my throat and I sighed with relief when we turned in the opposite direction, towards the tunnels. 

Because that was what I had come to see. Naples has ancient tunnels the way other cities have rats.They were part of a Roman aqueduct system.At times they were so narrow that I had to crouch almost on my knees and sometimes they were as vast as a cathedral. One thing I knew for certain – they were going in my book! 

My main character, 21-year-old Caterina, came to me while I was drinking a cappuccino in Sorrento. I was sitting in Fauno Bar in Piazza Tasso and she walked straight into my life. I was surrounded by shops selling music boxes of the most wonderful inlaid woodwork and I knew immediately that this craft would be her passion. I liked that it was traditionally a male occupation because it indicated immediately that this was a young woman who refused to be restricted by convention. 

I started to ask myself questions. How far would Caterina go to survive? To protect her family – her young brother and blind grandfather? Would she forgive her mother for deserting them? And could she shoot the man who threatened her family? As I sat there munching a biscotti, I found that the more dangers I threw at Caterina, the more she forged a new kind of courage and resilience within herself. 

The scugnizzi are one of these dangers. They are street kids who roamed Naples in packs, stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down and living by their own rules.The heavy bombing of the city left many children homeless and orphaned, so they bonded together to survive on the streets, living off their wits. They became one another’s replacement family and there was a fierce loyalty among them. 

One of these groups of scugnizzi plays a crucial role in The Liberation, as the boys flit between the criminal world and the military, often acting as runners and messengers. It’s when their paths crosses Catherina’s that she learns about the brutality of Naples and how to bargain for her life. 

The research for this book was pure joy for me. I start with history books, followed by a few tattered photographs, a yellowing piece of film, and a tiny detail in a memoir of a soldier in the US Fifth Army. 

But research can be very seductive – ask any writer. I am quite capable of wallowing in it indefinitely.The day dawned when I had to pick up my pen and take Caterina from the peaceful clifftop of Sorrento down into Naples. I had learned from my research that Naples is a city you don’t mess with, so when Caterina came calling, she carried a gun. 

The Liberation by Kate Furnivall is published by Simon & Schuster.