A young woman’s loveless marriage drives her to the brink. The Dry Heart opens with a startling revelation. The unnamed narrator reveals she has shot her husband between the eyes. To find out why, we are taken back four years to the beginning of her relationship with Alberto, a man over a decade her senior. Their relationship was not passionate from the beginning, Alberto confessing to a prior love, a woman named Giovanna whom he still meets clandestinely. Complicating matters is Augusto, Alberto’s good friend. He doesn’t particularly like the narrator and the two can barely tolerate each other, except when it suits their own interests. The freewheeling friend of the narrator, Francesca, adds more drama to this already explosive mix. Tensions escalate when the narrator has a baby and finds herself even more isolated. Loneliness had stalked her life, making her vulnerable to a loveless relationship with a man who physically repulsed her. Finding herself emotionally cornered, she hits out. First published in 1947 by Italian novelist Natalia Ginzburg, The Dry Heart reads as very contemporary, almost like something by Rachel Cusk or Jhumpa Lahiri. It’s sparse and forensic in its dissection of a very unhealthy marriage, one full of pathetic neediness and cruel indifference. Ginzburg brilliantly sustains an unrelenting tension as the narrator finds herself boxed into a corner, desperately needing release from her hopeless situation. An expertly told psychological thriller that reads as very modern indeed. The Dry Heart, by Natalia Ginzburg. Published by Daunt Books. $19.99 Review by Chris Saliba Comments are closed.
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