Read more
While the radio announcer reports new conflicts and atrocities every day and beggars line the pavements outside her comfortable apartment, the old woman struggles to maintain her grip on life. It is a ridiculous age, she tells an acquaintance. Almost everyone she used to know and love is dead. Only her ancient cat and her best friend Malvina are left, and Malvina is rapidly sliding into senility.
But the old woman's real and constant grief is the loss of her lover, Nora, ten years ago. In this disintegrating world, her lifeline is an immigrant worker, Gabriela, the home help. But Gabriela is being hounded for money by her dysfunctional family, which includes the self-styled 'terrorist' Dorin. How far can an elderly and cultivated woman, still feisty if increasingly world-weary and prickly, allow herself to be drawn into the affairs of a young woman she does not entirely trust?
A brilliant evocation of the challenges of old age, Margherita Giacobino's caustic and funny novel is a tragi-comedy whose unexpected and dramatic conclusion will leave the reader gasping.
About the author
Margherita Giacobino, born in 1952, lives in Turin. She is a writer, journalist and translator. She has translated, among others, Emily Bronte, Gustave Flaubert, Margaret Atwood, Dorothy Allison and Audre Lorde.
Portrait of a Family with a Fat Daughter, is the first novel by Margherita Giacobino to be translated into English. It was shortlisted for the Italian Prose Award 2019. Dedalus published
The Price of Dreams, a fictionalised account of the life of Patricia Highsmith, in 2020 followed in 2024 by
The Ridiculous Age.
