Personal Effects
A Novel
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
An abandoned wife travels into the heart of the Eastern bloc in search of an elusive writer and her own identity in this wry and captivating satire
Valentina has spent the last decade as a most dutiful wife: cooking meals, cleaning house, and translating dry liturgical writings for her husband, Ricardo, to use in his own bestselling literary endeavors. When Ricardo leaves her for another woman, Valentina realizes there is little in her life that is truly hers. So she resolves to strike out on her own as a journalist and track down the elusive novelist Milos Jarco, hiding somewhere in pre-glasnost Eastern Europe. Perhaps in finding Jarco, she can find herself as well.
The gray world she enters is marked by tight lips, guarded secrets, and universal mistrust. Her search for Jarco hits roadblock after roadblock. But on her odyssey through the Soviet hinterland, Valentina encounters something unexpected. She discovers passion . . . and oddly enough, freedom.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Italian author of Happy Ending maintains an almost classical sense of balance between the absurdly true and the truly absurd in this elegant and witty satire. Valentina has spent 10 years dutifully translating the writings of the Church Fathers, the subjects of her glib husband's bestselling biographies. When he leaves her for a more independent woman, she's at loose ends--until she spots a copy of an Eastern European novel called The Answer . She decides to track down its author, Milos Jarco, and interview him for a glossy magazine. While Valentina hopes that her talent for Slavic languages will help her dislodge rather more than the standard story of his life, her journey to Jarco's never-named native city yields revelations even greater than she could have imagined. Duranti contains her expansive comedy by allowing Valentina to deliver a deadpan narration. Her dry observations counterbalance the farcical elements of the story, luring the reader into her fictional world with confidence and consummate charm.
