A novel about obsessions and the falling apart of the traditional family, caused by a framework of omissions. Through an editing process that follows the journey of memory – that of a mentally unstable man – this is a psychological thriller that lays bare the frailty of the characters and the thousand facets of a challenging family relationship.

In the past, in a Rome only lightly hinted at, there is a couple in crisis: unable to have children, they try in every way until a miracle happens and Sabrina is born. But the dream come true has a devastating effect on their lives.

In the present, we have Sabrina – now nearly grown up – who has just found again the father she hadn’t seen for over ten years. We have her mother, hurt and abandoned, who has raised her but been unable to rebuild her own life. We have Carlotta, the daughter of the father’s girlfriend, who soon becomes the sister Sabrina has always wanted.

They are women, sisters and daughters: symbolic figures and likenesses, experienced actresses and makers of humanity and sorrow. Their stories are told by Sabrina’s father who, after her birth, gradually slides into mental illness. But women are above all life, and the unexpected trip by father and daughter into the depths of the Sicily of their origins brings out the mythical roots of this story and the foundations of sisterhood.

A relationship on the rocks, the 21st century environmental crisis, the decline of Rome’s Great Beauty. These are just a few of the elements that make this debut novel into a ruthless mirror of our times.

English sample available – 2 editions

The De Stefanos seem like the perfect couple: good-looking, wealthy, and successful. Emanuele, their eighteen-year-old son, who studies in London, has managed to overcome his dyslexia. Once again, they spend New Year’s Eve in her parent’s house. Unfortunately, nobody knows that the De Stefanos haven’t lived together for over a year. A victim of her own defeatist melancholy despite her psychologist’s support, she has never been able to voice her feeling of unease and takes refuge in online dating sites. Pretending to be his wife’s victim, he has embarked on a relationship with a new member of staff at the firm where he works and is living with his friend and colleague Moses, an anarchic, environmentalist Bostonian. And while they are both intent on eating each other alive in silence, against the backdrop of a crisis that does not involve only the couple but is a symbol of what the world is going through, tragedy strikes and it is young Emanuele who gets to pay the price.