A book by Francesca Barra, who puts an Italian region at the center of the story: Basilicata
The story of a family, through the stories of three sisters, their loves, their problems and their estrangement. All in a great land: Basilicata
The landscapes and the land of Basilicata play a leading role
One cannot ignore the ties with one's family. But even more, the deep bond with one's land cannot be severed. With the place where the first steps were taken and where the first fundamental experiences were lived. You can try, running away, as far as possible, with the good excuse of studying, working. But sooner or later you have to deal with that knot that you carry inside.
In novel by Francesca Barra, Lucanian by birth, television and radio journalist and author, Basilicata is central. A land with its perfumes, with its rhythms, with landscapes that seem immutable, suspended in a different time from that of other places.
Giulia and Lorenzo, their teenage brother and sister, understand this well. They are sent by their parents to spend the summer with their grandmother, in Lucania, precisely. Forced because they do not know that world and, despite this, they despise it. For them, born in the North, accustomed to the rhythms of the big city and a totally different lifestyle. Even the peers of Borgo Felice, this is the name of the town, seem light years away. And above all they do not understand why their mother, Beatrice, who has not returned home for years, wants to force them to spend the summer months there.
The geographic and interior journey of the two adolescents in Basilicata
In the end Lorenzo and Giulia will leave and theirs will not be just a geographical journey but an inner journey through memory. A journey that will allow them to tie the broken threads and the memory of their family, bringing out the truth about their mother and her relationship with their sisters, Ida and Rosella.
Here is an olfactory excerpt from the story entitled “The most beautiful summer of our life”.
“The earth, down here, smells of wild licorice .. That land wedged between the saltiness of two seas. Among the badlands that seem drawn with chalk. When they first visited the region where their parents grew up, they were that age when every place resembles another ... That perfume was nestled in the nostrils.
