Nadia Terranova writes with a keen sense of inner emotional landscapes and complex interpersonal dynamics. Her works delve into the depths of the human psyche, exploring themes of identity, memory, and the search for meaning. Terranova is characterized by her refined stylistic sensibility and her ability to draw readers into compelling narratives that resonate long after the final page. Her prose style is both poetic and piercing.
Set against the backdrop of the 1908 earthquake in Sicily and Calabria, the narrative intertwines the lives of a young woman seeking freedom from an arranged marriage and a boy escaping an abusive, unstable mother. Their journeys of resilience and self-discovery unfold amidst the chaos and destruction, highlighting themes of survival and the quest for autonomy in a tumultuous world.
Ida is a married woman in her late thirties, who lives in Milan and works at a radio station. Her mother wants to renovate the family apartment in Messina, to put it up for sale and asks her daughter to sort through her things - to decide what to keep and what to throw away. Surrounded by the objects of her past, Ida is forced to deal with the trauma she experienced as a girl, twenty-three years earlier, when her father left one morning, never to return.