'altMa'

Author: Stephen Lughermo

Publisher: Horizons Publications / 2023

Pages: 318

More than just getting me to get to read this book it was an interview with John Demanuele on TVM that brought to my attention the author himself.

In fact, this is not the first book by Stephen Lughermo. Previous to this book there were Celel Bla Hitan, Jarmuk and X'Ahna Smart, for which he was awarded the Novels for Youth prize in 2014 together with Leanne Ellul.

This book was first published in 2023 so we don't know if it was submitted for the top prize of original novels in Maltese to be announced during the Book Week in November.

Whatever the case it was rather surprising to hear it announced a few weeks ago that the prize will not be awarded because, it was said, none of the books submitted had reached an acceptable level.

The other question in my mind regards the very strange title of the book which we learn is the name of the protagonist. There is an explanation for this in the book. AltMa = Altamira (of) Malta.

At the beginning of the book the protagonist is a newsroom hack, working at unholy hours churning out news items no one will ever read. Think of for example, the TVM newsroom, even though this does not include a newspaper.

She has her own personal problems to cope with - her marriage had collapsed and her only son lived in a dream world of his own.

Then the newsroom head started sending her out to do interviews. Later, the opportunities to do reportages outside the office multiply and she finds she is good at this.

Apart from breaking out of the office tedium, this new tendency gets her to meet people she would otherwise never meet.

It is on one of these outside engagements that she comes in touch with a French news company. Meanwhile, she has snapped out of her old, dowdy, image.

This is one of the book's fundamental changes of plot and it is, in my opinion, a rather flimsy one. Maltese and French are very distant from each other. There are some French world beaters but Italy's Mediaset would have probably been a better fit.

altMa continues to attract attention especially when she is chosen to be part of a small delegation of journalists who are invited to the Elysee to interview the French president.

Meanwhile she finds herself in a closer relationship with the head of the French company in Malta who showers her with attention and ambition.

Then he sets her up as a choice morsel in a scheme to attract the French group to set up a collaboration with the Maltese group.

This involves a lot of travelling and the atmosphere becomes quite heady. The places she is invited to - the refined lifestyle is very different from the life she had in her Maltese village. She becomes estranged from her family, especially her nanna and her aunt, and most of all her own son, increasingly antagonistic to her capitalist lifestyle.

Somehow things happen that pull her back from the brink. Her nanna dies and she does not find time to go and visit her. Then one day, sad and guilt-laden, she goes back to her village and visits the small chapel in the middle of a valley where she finds her aunt still teaching catechism to small children.

Still, she is pushed to do her utmost to get the French group agree to letting the Maltese group become their head.

Until something snaps and she snaps out of the whole scheme, which we now see was completely artificial. She had paid a bitter price. But redemption is still possible.

As I said earlier the committee deciding on the national book awards this time decided not to award any book in the novels section.

I do not know if this book was on the list nor what were the reasons behind the decision.

What I know is that this book is a good read. Nor have I read the other novels by this quite young author. All I know is that it is too easy to criticise and discourage those who against huge odds try to do their bit.