Quiet Chaos: A Novel - Softcover

Veronesi, Sandro

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061572942 ISBN 13: 9780061572944

Publisher: Ecco, 2011

Synopsis

On the shores of the Mediterranean, exhausted from an afternoon of surfing, Pietro Paladini is shaken out of his stupor by a distant noise. “Over there!” he cries to his brother, Carlo, sunning beside him. “Over there!”

So begins the adventure that will tear a hole in Pietro’s life. For while he and his brother struggle to save two drowning swimmers, a tragedy is unfolding down the road at his summer cottage. Instead of coming home to a hero’s welcome, Pietro is greeted by the flashing lights of an ambulance, the wide-eyed stare of his young daughter, Claudia, and the terrible news that his fiancÉe, Lara, is dead.

Life must go on. Or does it? Pietro, a true iconoclast, has to find his own way. When he drops Claudia off for the first day of school, he decides to wait outside for her all day, and then every day. To protect her. To protect himself. To wait for the heavy fist of grief to strike. But as the days and weeks go by, the small parking lot in front of the school becomes his refuge from the world as well as the place where family and colleagues come to relieve their own suffering—among them, the woman he rescued from the waves. And Pietro plunges deeper into the depths of his life before seeing the simple truth before his eyes.

Sandro Veronesi makes art of every detail, creating a mosaic of humor, hope, profound insight, and emotional resonance. Quiet Chaos is an unprecedented portrayal of a life set adrift by death.

About this title

About the Author:

Sandro Veronesi was born in Prato, Italy, in 1959. The Force of the Past, is his first to be published in America. He lives in Rome, Italy.

From Publishers Weekly:

In Veronesi's absorbing second novel translated into English (after The Force of the Past), Italian television executive Pietro Paladini saves a woman from drowning at the exact moment his wife, Lara, suddenly dies. After the unexpected death, Pietro becomes enveloped in a strange calm, and he spends each day outside his daughter's school, observing the quiet rhythms of life. Meanwhile, his bosses visit him to share cryptic information about a messy corporate merger, and his co-workers, buckling under the strain of the merger, turn to him for advice and go a little crazy. Things get even messier when Pietro encounters the woman he rescued, Eleonora, a wealthy seductress whose life has also been upended by that pivotal moment. Veronesi finds some success in this courageous and difficult project, creating an unreliable narrator who feels an unusual manifestation of grief, though the subplots are so crudely satirical that it's unclear where the winking satire ends and the realist psychological drama begins. Moore's translation is commendable, especially considering the cacophony of voices and Pietro's racing, fractured narration as he dwells in that space between sorrow and madness. (Apr.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0061572942
• ISBN 13: 9780061572944
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432