Michela Murgia

Maria is a *fillus de anima*, > that is what they call children born twice, of the poverty of one woman (who gives them away) and the barrenness of another (who welcomes and raises them). In our case, Maria has been “adopted” by Tzia Bonaria, an elderly widow. The novel’s first part, the most accomplished, recounts Maria’s childhood and adolescence, and in particular her gradual acquaintance with her adoptive mother—a woman always dressed in black, austere, reserved, who ostensibly earns her living as a seamstress. Tzia Bonaria provides the child with relative comfort, ensures her education, and above all constructs a fragile normality around Maria, behaving “as though the child had been born of her own womb.” For Maria, this filial bond and the acceptance of belonging to two families is a gradual conquest, one that accustoms her to being the focus of public attention, to accepting anomalous situations, and to shaping her own life independently. Her ability to confront the unspeakability of the world and of human nature collides, however, with a jarring and unsettling discovery. Tzia Bonaria is an *accadabora*—that is, a woman who grants a sweet death (euthanasia) to those who ask for it. In a dramatic confrontation, Maria, “with the tearless sob of a strangled beast,” demands that the elderly widow explain “this necessary thing,” the dispensing of a sweet death. And Tzia Bonaria’s justification is startling, lying far beyond Maria’s comprehension. > I learned on my own, says Tzia Bonaria, that children need both the slap and the caress, the breast, and the feast-day wine, and whatever they need, whenever they need it. I had my part to play, too, and I played it.... I was the last mother some ever saw.... When the time comes, Maria, you will discover things about yourself that you do not yet know . The young woman cannot bear the thought of living with a woman who dispenses death and flees far from Sardinia, finding employment with a family in Turin. This marks the second part of the novel, an interlude that also serves as a turning point—albeit a rather obscure one—in the narrative arc. One of the boys entrusted to her care as a governess is a taciturn, hostile, domineering adolescent; yet Maria’s habit of reckoning with the indescribable allows her to unlock the young man’s inner life and uncover a dreadful secret: the boy suffered sexual abuse in his childhood. Sharing so horrific a truth leads to love, for the bond between individuals is never stronger than when it rests upon the profoundest mysteries of the human soul. In the third part of the novel, Maria returns to Sardinia to attend to Tzia Bonaria in her slow agony. The narrative moves gradually, yet also sluggishly, toward the epilogue, without, however, delivering the resolution one ought to expect. Why does Tzia Bonaria die a moment before Maria is about to perform the euthanasia? Is a sweet death a threshold we cannot cross? Something we ultimately cannot accept? In addressing so complex a theme, there was a risk of drifting into redundant prose, fraught with parenthetical digressions and overwrought passages. The author, instead, has navigated the subject with a light, restrained, at times ironic style, relying on vivid character sketches and vignettes typical of rural Sardinian life. The novel’s first part is undoubtedly the finest, both in its prose and its dramatic structure. The storytelling builds in intensity as it approaches the final scene: the clarifying confrontation between Maria and Tzia Bonaria. In the subsequent parts, the narration becomes bloated, forfeiting that spareness and levity that had characterized the preceding pages. The narrative thread itself splinters and dissolves, depriving the reader of a clear sightline toward the conclusion, which disappoints all the more for this very reason. Why read it? The subject is compelling, the prose engaging.