Book Review: 'I Before E' Completes a Generational Saga

Drew Banks Puts a Dot on His Elba Trilogy

Drew Banks returns us to the Island of Elba off the Italian coast for the third part in his novelistic triptych, I Before E. As with Ere I Saw Elba, the second volume in the trilogy, Banks selects a character from his first novel, Able Was I, to bring front and center; surprisingly, it’s Paolo, whom we glimpsed as a child in that first book. In I Before E, Banks writes with a blend of grace and force about him growing up as a first-generation émigré to America. Haunted by memories of his late father, Antonio, and of his homeland, Paolo feels his way forward while clinging to the past.

Paolo is driven by the mystery of how Antonio perished. It’s not the cause of death that’s puzzling; Antonio drowned while swimming in the ocean. What’s hard to understand is why such a strong and experienced swimmer would have succumbed to the waves. His wife Maria is so traumatized by his loss that once she’s crossed the Atlantic with young Paolo and his sister Julia she forbids them to anywhere near the water - forbids them, for that matter, to leave the Little Italy section of Manhattan.

Tides of heritage and destiny pull Paolo toward other unresolved questions of his family history… not only the death of his father, but those of all four grandparents, who were killed decades before Antonio met his demise. But drives of another, more primal sort also propel him: As he reaches manhood and experiences a complicated sexual awakening, Paolo discovers within himself even deeper mysteries. Sexuality and generational secrets entwine as an atavistic lure brings Paolo back to his ancestral homeland, and to a reckoning that will draw past and present into a surprising symmetry.

It’s been a decade and a half since Banks’ second novel (he explained why in our interview), but I Before E proves worth the wait. Meticulously crafted to fit the larger narrative of the trilogy, and revisiting beloved characters from the earlier books, I Before E is a fitting capstone, and the final chapter in what one hopes will be only the opening of Banks’ literary output.

“I Before E” is available now.