Michael Fitzgerald’s second novel, Pietà, introduces us to Lucy, a young art history student on a mission: she’s tasked by her recently deceased mother (a former nun in the 1970s) to deliver a mysterious parcel addressed to Vatican City in Rome. Before Rome however, to earn the money she needs to travel through Europe and fulfil her mother’s request, Lucy accepts an au pair position in Saint-Cloud, a wealthy suburb on the outskirts of Paris. She is to care for baby Felix, while his mother, Mathilde, travels to Central Australia to complete her research on a local First Nations artist.

So begins a journey of self-discovery, complex emotions and intense homesickness for Lucy. After the departure of Mathilde, Lucy finds herself ensconced in an increasingly and strangely intimate triangular relationship with Jean-Claude (Felix’s father) and the couple’s charismatic friend Sébastien, a marble restorer. Lucy’s feelings about her role as au pair also become more and more conflicted – she feels true emotional attachment to Felix but chafes at the claustrophobia of the demands placed on her to care for such a young child. Her longing for home is further exacerbated by the things that surround her: the Australian garden at Empress Joséphine’s Malmaison residence, and Mathilde’s letters from Alice Springs.

Pietà feels very much like a vast expanse of a novel, artfully condensed into 251 pages. Much like the characteristic swirls and veins of marble, Fitzgerald weaves the complexity of human relationships, the great mysteries of love, religion, art and iconoclasm effortlessly throughout this intriguing read.

Tye Cattanach is a bookseller at Readings Carlton.