If you’re interested in translated literature from Italy, in mother/daughter stories, in the way crime affects community - The Brittle Age by Donatella Di Pietrantonio is one to look out for. She’s very interested in the psychology of motherhood, of the emotional and sometimes physical separation that can happen between mother and child, and her books are intense but incredibly compelling.

And it’s translated into English by my fave Ann Goldstein, who you probably know as the translator of all of Elena Ferrante’s work, as well as other major Italian writers like Primo Levi, Alba de Céspedes and Elsa Morante. I’ve read a lot of interviews with Goldstein and she’s a very particular translator, a very literal one, focused on getting the nuances of the writer just so. Italian can be an emotional, idiosyncratic language and I like that she’s faithful to that.

In any case, this latest work by Di Pietrantonio had me hooked from the start. It’s set in Abruzzo, where she’s from, a region that’s quite mountainous - and the landscape is an important part of the novel, which was inspired by true events.

Lucia is a physiotherapist in the process of separating from her husband. Her daughter Amanda is studying in Milan, but when the pandemic hits she returns home to her small, rural community.

This awakens memories of the past, and the novels then goes back and forth as Lucia remembers the summer she was 20 years old, when a brutal crime shatters the peace of tbr this place they call home. Two tourists visiting the region are murdered, and a third girl - Lucia’s best friend - survives.

The book weaves the past and the present together as both mother and daughter reckon with their own personal issues and the impact of that crime on the community and to some extent, the land itself.

This is a slim work, it’s under 200 pages, but I thought it was a fascinating look the idea of resilience, of PTSD, of familial obligations and what cannot sustain the aftermath of trauma. The writing is frank, which is one of her hallmarks, but also very subtle - the emotional tension is released slowly, carefully, and the pacing is perfectly taut, with the punches coming unexpectedly even though you do expect them.

A great read, and a reminder of how much I love southern Italian literature.

Brittle- definition - "delicate and easily broken- fragile"

The Brittle Age by Donatella Di Piertrantonio is a novel about relationships , trauma and the balance to move forward. This is the story of Lucia and her daughter Amanda- scarred by personal tragedies and navigating ways forward. Both have grown up a small village community in Abruzzo. Both have been affected by events at around the age of 20 leaving them brittle.

The hilltop forest village was the scene of a violent crime- three young women were shot whilst hiking close to a campsite- two died. The survivor was Lucia's best friend- Doralice; just through slight chance did Lucia not join the girls on the fateful day- the guilt hangs over her.

Some years later, Lucia's daughter Amanda returns home during the pandemic- she becomes withdrawn and isolated from everybody- she has been the victim of a violent assault.

The story moves between the mother and daughter relationship whilst exploring the impact of violence and the need to escape, try to move forward and escape the past.

The story of the murders and the impact on the people and families in the village is the key focus of the novel- Di Pietrantonio navigates the horror of the event with sensitivity and without gratuitous detail- the tragedy is clear. The consequences of all those connected to the campsite and the subsequent history of the land leads much of the book. How can an area 'shake off" violence and when Lucia becomes the beneficiary of the land- she is torn about what is the best action.

This is not a lengthy novel but the depth of emotion runs deep. The relationship between mother and daughter is powerful; Lucia reflects upon her childhood - relationships and what could she have done differently ; still living in the small town and finding solace in a choir, this is an exploration of fractured relationships and how we heal.

A Girl Returned and A Sister's story were excellent reads. The Brittle Age cements Di Pietrantonio's reputation as one of Italy's best contemporary novelist.

Ann Goldstein's translation is superb.

Quotes: "The secret life of children. We know it exists but we're never ready to touch it. In the cloud space of our heads they remain sexless angels forever. Undifferentiated, never completely born."

"Fragments of conversation from then other tables, a cheerfulness of spoons being put down.."

"Nature is beautiful for the wealthy, not for those who have to work like slaves,"

The novel was good, but not special in its telling about trauma and how it may impact on different personalities. I must admit that after reading the blurb, I expected more from the novel: more subtlety and depths.
I received a digital copy of this novel from NetGalley and I have voluntarily written an honest review.

A girl survives a tragedy, another lives with trauma. Family life and a senseless murder in a remote mountain area in Italy. The secret lives of our children.

this book was handled really well. its had the main plots but also those little rippled points that are often just as important... the side shoots of the plot. we have the story of both our character separately and also together and how they both impact one another. you often did and do think of the Covid times by how they impacted those you love and those around you. but there are so many stories that must be involved in that time. so many stories that must have been effected by lock downs. and this is one such example. and just because it might not be exactly the same as our own doesn't mean we cant see the feelings and emotional moments as close to our own. and the other part of the book tells the story of a mother and her daughter. how roles are kept the same but also as time shifts how they slip, slide and sometimes swap. both woman have been through something. and both have been effected greatly. and i thought the telling of this was done with the delicacy it deserved and needed. covid is not the dominant theme in the book which i think was brilliant as i didnt want that to be bogging down or stripping the main points or themes away. and it didnt at all, but like the time itself it was an important part in our history and for many set things into motion that might not have happened. or put us with people we might not have. in good ways and bad ways it had it effects. but this is very much the about our main characters. and i really liked that the author managed to keep that authenticity.

This is an intense narrative with none of the playful humour of 'A Girl Returned' but written with a similar economy of style and emotional authenticity.

While the plot seems sparse: a daughter who returns to live with her mother in the mountains during covid; the mother, Lucia's, memories of a traumatic crime that took place when she was Amanda's age - for me, this is a book about the precarity of safety, especially for women, and the struggle to find a way to live within such contingency. With so much interest in Lucia's interiority and the past crime, I appreciated the depiction of Lucia's father whose trust in his own landscape and ability to keep 'his' women safe is called into question: 'for my father it was the safest place in the world. Safer than the crowded bus that carried me to the sea, or the beach with the near-naked people. For him, the dangers were down there. Instead his woods had betrayed him... In those hours he had lost all his certainties; he stared at me as if I could explain to him such a death.'

Alongside the crime and its effects on a small community, this book layers up the disjunctions caused by the covid years as well as the emotional flux that can turn a marriage into a relationship that withers and which needs to be discarded. So many forms of stability are shown to be vulnerable, unsteady, fragile and 'brittle' as the title has it - and this book encompasses them in a way that is deceptively simple and straightforward.

For all the accessibility and lovely clarity of Lucia's voice, this is a richer, deeper, and more moving exposition than we might think at first sight.

Very much doubting between 3 and 4 stars... I appreciated how controlled and realistic it felt. At the same time, I felt she was trying to do too much in too few pages.

The Brittle Age is set in rural Abruzzo. Our narrator Lucia is a middle-aged woman whose daughter Amanda - due to Covid and because she was attacked - comes back home from Milan where she was studying. Amanda's passivity, possibly a sign of depression, is hard for Lucia. At the same time, Lucia inherits her father's land in the mountains, with a camping ground. Decades earlier a gruesome double murder happened there, more or less when Lucia had the (fragile) age her daughter has now.

It won the Premio Strega, but although I enjoyed it I am not sure it's necessarily prizeworthy.

The Brittle Age by Donatella Di Pietrantonio is a delicate, emotionally rich novella that captures the quiet turbulence of aging, memory, and maternal bonds. The story centres on a woman navigating the slow decline of her once-dominant mother, as roles reverse and long-buried tensions rise to the surface.

Subtle but deeply affecting, the book meditates on fragility—of the body, of relationships, and of time itself. It’s a beautifully observed portrait of vulnerability and care, told with restraint and compassion. A short but resonant read.