All the inhabitants of that little village in Abruzzo near Pescara are fragile; it is Dente del wolf, where Lucia grew up together with her friend Doralice. Their safe place, at least until that terrible night at the end of summer, when their youth was interrupted at just twenty years old.
Amanda and Lucia find themselves aligned in this: both experience a broken youth.
From relationships, also arise restarts. That of the country, after the brutal crime; that of Amanda, after Milan; that of Lucia and Doralice, after that night. The ending is also a restart, the return to Dente del Lupo and to life as it was before. It took thirty years, so that nature would erase the traces of that horror; it took a demolition bulldozer and here was new life. From this moment, you can start rebuilding.
The writing goes straight to the point, without sparing itself in harshness. No long words, but effective descriptions that give images that are difficult to forget. Amanda’s red hair, for example, which goes hand in hand with her mood: it is devoid of light when she too is; they are on fire when she awakens.
The fragile age it flows quickly before the eyes of the reader. Thanks to the linear style, but above all thanks to the narrative that proceeds smoothly, continuously fueling the reader’s curiosity.
Time jumps back and forth in a well-thought-out zigzag, in which it is impossible to lose the thread.
The story steals from the life experience of the person who wrote it: Abruzzo and the mountains; a severe father and a mother divided between the fields and the home, with no time for herself; the Morrone crime.
For all these merits, The fragile age he earned his place among the twelve finalists of the 2024 Strega Prize. What can I say, if not in the mouth of the Wolf’s Tooth, Donatella!
