In “The Silences of Ogliano” by Elena Piacentini, everything takes place in Mediterranean landscapes but nothing is clear, we don’t know if it’s Sicily, Corsica or the hinterland of Nice. It is actually a south imagined by the author. A south to heavy secrets passed down from generation to generation.
The story takes place in this place, a village where a party is in full swing at the Villa Rose because Raffaele Delezio, heir to a wealthy family, has just finished his studies. All the inhabitants are present for the occasion. The father, Baron Delezio, and his young and pretty wife Tessa, César a rifleman turned jeweler and our hero named Libéro Solemanne who is the narrator. The latter comes from a very simple background, never knew the identity of his father because his mother never told him and, guess what, is crazy in love with Tesas Delizio. An explosive cocktail for a drama to occur before daybreak.
And that’s not all there will be here kidnappings and settling of accounts. We feel that the author Elena Piacentini has already written thrillers but it is not the investigation that takes precedence here in our reading. No, it’s the drama!
This story resembles both an apprenticeship novel and an ancient drama. We feel the immense weight of secrets never revealed, of the injustice of castes, social classes. We are struck by the charisma that Piacentini gives to his characters and we feel the tension rising little by little. The construction is extremely well done. I saw Pagnol there, I also thought of Jean de Florette while reading him, of the heaviness of small villages and the wickedness and pettiness of which the inhabitants are capable. It is a dark but human story. We feel the warmth, the silence, the tensions. It’s unstoppable masterfully. We come out dazed.