When life shows its harshest side, it is stories that save us. In times of transition, it’s easy to lose our way, but something—a voice, a book, a phrase—always comes along to set our compass straight. For Carmen, after the death of her parents, a time of uncertainty begins. She wonders if she was a good daughter, if there is a socially acceptable way to express sadness, and she is confronted with the fragility—in times of crisis—of many relationships, both romantic and platonic. She seeks a foothold in the concreteness of the world: the plants with which she fills her home, the land her father loved, the olive trees. Accompanying this jagged journey of healing are the pages of diaries: her own and those of others. Thus, through the wonder of writings that transcend time and space, she engages in dialogue with her past self, with her family history, and with accounts of the trenches and captivity. Meanwhile, authors who have explored loss—such as Joan Didion, Susan Sontag, and Paul Auster—become living presences: they shed light on the pain, name it, and make it bearable. This generous memoir, of inexhaustible literary richness, as acute and sensitive as a seismograph of the soul, speaks to anyone who has experienced grief. It reaches out to our loneliness and transforms the individual experience into a shared testimony. Because life is stronger than any end.

“Carmen Pellegrino transforms her pain into a precise and incisive written work.
As poignant as it is delicate and precious.”
Giacomo Giossi, Il Foglio

“Pellegrino’s writing possesses a rare quality: it manages to be speculative without losing its concreteness.” Cristina Taglietti, Corriere della Sera

“Pellegrino’s book is a lesson in fiction that delves deep into suffering.”
Titti Marrone, Il Mattino

“Around the unspeakable, the author weaves a narrative of the speakable.”
Natascia Festa, Corriere del Mezzogiorno

“Carmen Pellegrino restores to language the interplay between the finite and the infinite.”
Wanda Marasco

“This book is a tool we can use to confront the universal experience of parental grief.”
Stefano Piedimonte

"With writing that is not merely a testimony but becomes a redemptive duality,
Carmen Pellegrino writes a text that, through words, seeks a path to avoid getting lost in the darkness of loss."
Renato Minore, Il Messaggero