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Tell Me About It - Sacha Naspini

 


Genre: Literary Fiction | Contemporary Fiction

Release Date: Expected 2nd June 2022

Publisher: Europa Editions UK

"Hope is the thing with feathers." - Emily Dickinson

Nives was married for fifty years when her husband died. She found his body, shooed the pigs away so they wouldn't eat his entire face, buried him and then continued on without a tear. It was odd, but the only real sadness she felt was being alone in the farmhouse. 

So she decides to bring in her favourite hen, Giacomina to live with her and finds her feathered friend provides more comfort and companionship than her late husband ever did. But then history repeats, and Nives finds Giacomina perfectly still in front of the TV and resorts to a late night call to the local Veterinarian, Loriano - an old friend, a ghost from another life. 

Their phone call quickly drifts from the fate of Giacomina, from the here and now, into the distant past as Nives and this man who is almost a stranger now revisit the lives, losses and loves they thought they'd left long behind them. 

"Hearts at our age shouldn't skip too many beats, it's not pleasant."

Tell Me About It is unlike anything I've ever read. Delicate and poetic, but raw and authentic in it's honesty. This story is a beautiful reminder of the shared experiences that make us human and bind us together - feelings of loss, despair, betrayal but also of love and happiness. Naspini voraciously explores that grey, murky area that is life after loss, and the flickering light at the end that is our immense potential to love. 

There is also a stunning aspect to this story that resonated deeply with me - the refreshing and empowering concept of female independence and discovery - of finding ones own identity when it has always been defined by the men in your life. I wholeheartedly appreciate that Nives was not perfect - she was an old woman, who could be abrasive and rude, she was short-tempered and impulsive, but seeing her give herself that unfiltered permission to be her genuine self was a breath of fresh air.

This story is, quite simply, a conversation between two almost-strangers. Only a few pages in, the phone call starts and that's it - that's the whole book. And somehow, Naspini makes it work. There is few mentions of other people, there is no scenery and no action, just words spoken between two people. The prose manages to stay conversational and deeply intimate, but show a poetic, haunting perspective and show us the dreamscapes playing out in Nives and Lorianos memories. 

Beautiful in it's simplicity, this story is about the things that keep us up at night, and the reasons we wake up. And once you've read it, you'll definitely want to tell someone about it. 

"Day after day, I've been here, gazing at the shards of my broken dreams through misty eyes."

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review. Thank you to my partners at Europa Editions UK. 



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