Title: The Young Wife - Alessandro Baricco - book
Summary :
Italy, early 20th century. One fine day, the Young Wife appears before the Family. She is eighteen years old and has just arrived from Argentina because she is to marry the Son. While waiting for him to return from England, she is welcomed by the Family. The Young Wife then experiences a true sexual initiation: the Daughter seduces her and receives her education, duly completed by the Mother, and the Father takes her to a luxury brothel where she will listen to an edifying tale, which will reveal to her the mysteries of this family with its rituals as sophisticated as they are incomprehensible. But the Son still does not return; he simply sends all sorts of strange objects, which at first seem to announce his return and then, on the contrary, signify his disappearance. When the Family leaves for a summer vacation, the Young Wife decides to wait for him alone, a wait that will be full of surprises. With delicacy and virtuosity, the author of Silk and Novecento pianiste not only recreates a captivating world on the verge of collapse, reminiscent of the one Tomasi di Lampedusa depicts in The Leopard. He also offers us, seemingly out of nowhere, a formidable reflection on the craft of writing.
