QUELLA VOLTA CHE MIA MOGLIE HA CUCINATO I PEPERONI

Arianna Mortelliti, raised in the school of her grandfather Andrea Camilleri, writes a decidedly intriguing novel, calibrating suspense and information within a dialogue structure that gradually unravels knots and ambiguities.

Ninety-five-year-old Arturo Baldi is rushed to the hospital, where he slips into a deep coma. In spite of neurologists, who don't have much hope, Arturo's consciousness is still alert. In this mysterious suspended time Arturo is able to hear, one by one, all the family members who come to visit him in an incessant sequence of confessions, outbursts, and prayers. In those meanders of consciousness, he dominates the face-to-face with Dado, the restless brother, the talented painter, the rebel who has been missing for years inside the family scene. In this sort of populated stillness, Arturo goes back from childhood to the building of the large family that now, around his bed, oozes words and memory. Thus we follow his lifelong love for Carolina, his daughters Dori and Fiore, his granddaughters Margherita and Nina, soon to be married, and his great-granddaughter Anna, who inherited a painter's eye and hand from her great-uncle she never knew. Dado is the mirror to go back in time, into the tingling of secrets that allude where the family seems most steadfast. Arianna Mortelliti has a degree in biological sciences and works as a teacher. In this debut she has written an intriguing novel.