Don't Move

I can't remember the last time I wrote one of these reviews. This novel was just that gripping and beautiful. It is infused with details of love, with poignant smells, and it promises to break your heart. If you have ever loved and lost someone, this novel will resonate with you for a very long time.

The main character tells his daughter who lies in a coma his story. The story of his most intimate feelings towards different people. Obvious his love for his daughter and his fear she might die. The fact that over the years the love towards her mother has gone. And most of all its the story of the obscure relationship for an unknown woman he picked up somewhere, and the graphic account of the raw sex he has with her. And after a while there is a change in the horrifyingly selfish abuse of the main character towards this unknown woman. This book is chilling, tender and loving at the same time. It has in the meantime been travelling my circle of friends. Each and everyone finds it overwhelming. This is a must read for sure.

I read the Italian version "Non Ti Muovere" and just finished the English translation...what an excellent job done! Mazzantini captures the reader beyond a normal level. I wish the book would never end. If you like her work, "Il Cantino di Zinco" is also very well written, although out of print in English.

This is just a flat-out incredible, gripping novel that makes you salivate to anticipate the English translation of the author's other work (she's written, says the book jacket, another novel). Now I am not the world's most patient reader--I tend to like to get to the end of the books I read, however good they are. But this was a rare case where I wished the novel would have just kept on going, going, going. I was thoroughly captivated by the narrator and his story. You will be, too, I think.

A searing tale of sexual obsession "Don't Move" grips readers with riveting opening lines: "You ran the stop sign. You had your imitation wolf-skin jacket on, your headset was plugged into your ears, and you never even slowed down." The accident victim is Angela, the only child of Timoteo, a highly respected surgeon, and Elsa, also successful, an independent modern woman. The couple had discussed at length whether or not to give Angela the scooter she so desperately wanted. They had given in at last. As Timoteo sits alone by his daughter's bedside he realizes she is close to death. This fact, in some mysterious way causes him to reevaluate his own life. He remembers his past, the year before his daughter's birth and his inexplicable passion for Italia, a poor woman he met in a small town bar. His car had broken down, and he was stranded. Italia was the antithesis of his wife, "She was neither beautiful nor very young, with badly bleached hair and a thin but strong-boned face. She was wearing too much makeup, which made her bright eyes look sad." Nonetheless his desire for her was undeniable. Reliving his past Timoteo silently pours his anguished confession into the ears of his comatose daughter. Told largely in flashback "Don't Move" is a marvel of prose as Mazzantini adroitly tells parallel stories of Timoteo's well ordered life with Elsa and his all-consuming, passionate affair with Italia. Born in Ireland and raised in Italy, Mazzantini is an incredibly skilled writer. "Don't Move," which has sold over a million copies in Italy is her second novel and the first to be published in America. All one can say is welcome to our shores! - Gail Cooke