Farewell, Ghosts, Nadia Terranova
Farewell, Ghosts, Nadia Terranova
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Farewell, Ghosts

Author: Nadia Terranova, Ann Goldstein

Narrator: Nicol Zanzarella

Unabridged: 6 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/22/2020

Categories: Fiction, Women, Family Life


Synopsis

Ida is a married woman in her late thirties, who lives in Rome and works at a radio station. Her mother wants to renovate the family apartment in Messina, to put it up for sale and asks her daughter to sort through her things—to decide what to keep and what to throw away.

Surrounded by the objects of her past, Ida is forced to deal with the trauma she experienced as a girl, twenty-three years earlier, when her father left one morning, never to return. The fierce silences between mother and daughter, the unbalanced friendships that leave her emotionally drained, the sense of an identity based on anomaly, even the relationship with her husband, everything revolves around the figure of her absent father. Mirroring herself in that absence, Ida has grown up into a woman dominated by fear, suspicious of any form of desire. However, as her childhood home besieges her with its ghosts, Ida will have to find a way to break the spiral and let go of her father finally.

Beautifully translated by Ann Goldstein, who also translated Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan quartet, Farewell, Ghosts is a poetic and intimate novel about what it means to build one's own identity.

About Nadia Terranova

Nadia Terranova is the author of Gli anni al contrario, Casca il mondo, and Bruno, il bambino che imparo a volare. She also writes for the Italian newspaper la Repubblica. Farewell, Ghosts is her first book to be published in English.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Laura

Appunto, le scrittrici brave. Ma quanto scrive bene? Lessi il suo primo libro appena uscì. La conoscevo già che altro attraverso i social - poi uno dice che non servono a niente - ed ero curiosa, prevalentemente. Mi ricorso essere stata una piacevole scoperta e ne ero felice, mi era simpatica, mi sa......more

Il lutto per un’assenza da elaborare, tanto più difficile in quanto non si tratta di morte, ma di scomparsa. Una mattina il padre della protagonista (allora tredicenne) era uscito di casa senza salutare e senza dare alcuna spiegazione. Per lui si era probabilmente trattato dell’esito naturale di una......more

Goodreads review by Justo

3.5/5. Redondeo a 4 Estrellas Ida nació en Messina, Sicilia. Familia normal, hija única, padres trabajadores de clase media. Cuando tiene 13 años algo ocurre, el padre, sumido en una depresión, desaparece súbitamente y deja abandonadas a madre e hija que, perplejas, anonadadas, llenas de dolor, pero......more

Di dire che mi sia piaciuto (moltissimo) penso abbia meno importanza questa volta. Mi piacerebbe che tutti lo leggessero per capire come dovrebbe essere la narrativa contemporanea in Italia oggi: ben costruito, ben scritto, stratificato; non c’è una pagina di troppo, non una riga che si voglia salta......more