Why Ginzburg's Family Lexicon has the power of great fiction

As I hoped it would, Natalia Ginzburg's novel/memoir Family Lexicon (1963) gets a lot better in the second half, in which the narrator is a young married woman and the family and friends are caught up on the politics and repression that engulfed Italy just before and during the 2nd World War. In fact, NG's curiously reticent narrative style, in which she keeps a cool distance from bullying behavior of her father and in which she seems to deliberately befuddle us with the many characters whom we struggle to keep clear in our minds. As noted yesterday, she presents some of the most dramatic events - such as her brother's escape to freedom in Switzerland and her father's imprisonment - in such an offhanded manner, without much emotion and without vivid topical detail, that it almost seems as if she's intentionally avoiding drama (and melodrama). She sticks closely to what she knows first-hand, never speculating or imagining herself present at a scene where she was not. This reticence pays off well in the 2nd half of this book, as her style becomes almost frightening in its intentional reservation. For example, her marriage: She drops it into the narrative with the barest mention; same w/ her motherhood. But by this time, the late 30s early 40s, one after another among her friends and family become exiled, imprisoned, deported, torn from their roots. Some resist; most don't. Her father - the main force in this entire book - is forced to leave Italy and works for years in Belgium, while his wife stays behind, for the most part. These upheavals are recounted in the same cool and abstract tone that NG used in describing various family jokes and childhood games. We sense that the world is coming apart at the seams, and as she looks back at these days from the vantage of 20 or so years she can only tell them with the most cool dispassion; the memories are too painful otherwise. In short, this is a novel, if you will, that creeps up on you - and there are other books about this same period that do the same, notably The Garden of the Finzi Cortinis and perhaps the work of Primo Levi. This book may or may not be best classified as fiction and no doubt part of its effect comes from our confidence in its veracity, but Family Lexicon has the power of great fiction as it builds toward its inevitable conclusion.