Book description
In an innovative, thrilling literary style inspired by the
syncopated rhythms of modern music, Viola Di Grado has written a most
unusual love story, one as unpredictable as the human heart. Camelia
is a young Italian woman who lives with her mother in Leeds, a city
where it is always December and winter has been underway for such a
long time that nobody is old enough to have seen what came before.
Camelia has dropped out of university and translates instruction
manuals for an Italian washing machine manufacturer; her mother, Livia
Mega, once a renowned flautist, spends her days inside photographing
holes in the house. Camelia and her mother communicate in a language
of their own invention, in which words play no part. The lives of
these two women have been undone by a calamity in their recent past,
and there seems little or no possibility of ever finding their way
back to a normal life. But one day Camelia meets Wen, a local shop
owner. To win Camelia's affections, Wen begins teaching her Chinese
ideograms. Through this new language of signs and subtle variations
Camelia learns to see the world differently and, in it, a chance for
renewal. Bittersweet and funny at times, heartbreaking at others, 70%
Acrylic 30% Wool announces the arrival of an exceptional new talent on
the literary scene. It will find admirers among readers of fiction by
contemporary novelists like Karen Russell and Jennifer Egan.
