'Utterly gripped me from beginning to end' Victoria Hislop
'Move over Ferrante, there's a new Elena in town' Independent
'There is much beauty and sadness in this slim novel' The Times
In the August of 1978, the summer I met Anna Trabuio, my father took a girl into the woods...
I was sixteen.
He had been gone a long time already, but that was it - not even a year after he lost his job and that boy disappeared - that was when everything broke.
1978.
Ponte, a small community in Northern Italy. An unbearably hot summer like many others.
Elia Furenti is sixteen, living an unremarkable life of moderate unhappiness, until the day the beautiful, damaged Anna returns to Ponte and firmly propels Elia to the edge of adulthood.
But then everything starts to unravel.
Elia's father, Ettore, is let go from his job and loses himself in the darkest corners of his mind.
A young boy is murdered.
And a girl climbs into a van and vanishes in the deep, dark woods...
Translated by Alex Valente | Winner of an English PEN Award
A WORLD OF SUSPENCE À LA HITCHCOCK' Gaia Servadio | 'THE BEST ITALIAN NOVEL OF THE YEAR' Fabio Geda, author of In The Sea There Are Crocodiles | 'A BOOK TO GET LOST IN' Paolo Giordano, author of The Solitude of Prime Numbers | 'ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, INTENSE AND ORIGINAL BOOKS I HAVE ENCOUNTERED IN MY LIFE' Huffington Post Italy
'I knew nothing, back then, of the ways in which love can show itself, of the force with which it can push us into a corner and take our breath away'
1978.
Ponte, a small community in Northern Italy: peaceful woods, discarded rubbish, a closed-down factory. An unbearably hot summer like many others, wilted flowers and trips to the waterfalls.
Elia Furenti is sixteen, living in a secluded house with his parents, a life so unremarkable that even its moderate unhappiness has been accepted as normal.
That is until the day the beautiful, damaged Anna returns to Ponte and firmly propels Elia to the edge of adulthood.
But then everything starts to unravel.
Elia's father, Ettore, is let go from his job and loses himself in the darkest corners of his mind, spending day after day plotting his revenge.
A young boy is murdered, shaking the small community to its core.
And a girl climbs into a van and vanishes in the deep, dark woods...
Translated from Italian by Alex Valente.
Can You Hear Me? is
a perfect coming-of-age novel, with a dark core that will make you read until the very last page ... Elena Varvello has poured her heart and soul into this
beautiful, haunting piece of fiction.
