Description
More literary fiction from Europe is now presented in English for the first time, this time from Italy, and if you like long-winded passages, with little to no dialogue and a lot of introspection, then this is the book for you. Claudia and Francesco meet in school when they are children, turning into wise and cranky adults. The first time Francesco meets Claudia he is struck by a bolt and falls head over heels, after many long passages about his lackluster home life and his two parents who no longer love each other but are compelled to stick with each other because of Francesco.
Claudia is everything Francesco isn’t and because they are such opposites of each other they will come into contact many times throughout their life. Beyond the wide eye of first love, Claudia knows that Francesco’s dad and her mother are lovers and asks if he knew that, which begins their journey of the discovery of what it means to be in love. Beyond that there is not much plot, oftentimes paragraphs are a page or more and it is more about the ennui of the generation born in the 1980s more than anything else.