AUTHOR’S NOTE

This novel has its roots in the landscapes of my homeland.

In that sense, none of it is made up. Travenì, with its millennial forest, the gorge, the quarries, the alpine lakes, and its vertiginous peaks, really does exist, if by another name. The mountains, the seasons, the smells, the colors of nature have been part of my life since I was a child, and it was inevitable that they should become the backdrop to this story—and even play an integral part in it, like a separate character.

The land I come from is generous, but it can also be demanding. Its sons and daughters have been shaped by the toil of an agrarian past, and the violence of an earthquake that has erased countless homes and families, but has not dented their determination. Everything has been rebuilt exactly as it was before, where possible, by anastylosis, with the fallen bricks already tagged and numbered while the dead were still being counted. We moved on, but we did not forget, and the earthquake became a part of our DNA.

This novel is dedicated to my homeland, too.

The study of the devastating effects of emotional deprivation on infants, to which I allude in the novel, was conducted by René Spitz, an Austrian psychoanalyst who was later naturalized as an American. Between 1945 and 1946, Spitz observed the behavior of ninety-one children housed in an orphanage. Bereft of the most basic manifestations of love, the children found their growth stunted, suffered delays in the development of their cognitive and motor skills, exhibited an absence of facial expressions, and an overall weakening of their immune defenses. After a few months, they fell into a state of lethargy. Spitz termed their condition “anaclitic depression.”

Nearly 40 percent of the infants under observation died before they reached two years of age.

The study, which was in its time considered to be pioneering, would today raise serious ethical questions, but it did establish irrefutably that in order to survive, a child needs more than just the fulfillment of its material needs. To develop properly, including in its physical features, it must form strong and lasting emotional bonds.

The exposure to emotional stimuli enables the formation of a physiological correlation between aggression and libido—intended as the vital force that perpetuates life and ensures survival. In the absence of any form of tenderness, the children whose development Spitz observed released their aggression on their own bodies, which were the only outlets at their disposal. Thus, despite being adequately fed, they allowed themselves to die.

Being caressed, kissed, and shown physical affection was as important as being properly nourished.

And finally, Teresa Battaglia.