Meeting in Positano by Goliarda Sapienza
Meeting in Positano is a beautifully written exploration of female friendship. Set in the village of Positano, which, like most of Italy, is still making sense of a post-fascist, post-communist, post-monarch Italy, as the characters grapple with the reverberations of war, ideology, and societal change. Two women from divergent backgrounds, one a modern filmmaker from Rome and the other a regal vestige of the aristocratic age, magnetically connect in this small fishing village. Through their intimacy we witness a transformation in their friendship with one another over the fluidity of time. Construction of a new road to Positano brings upheaval and stress as similar tumultuousness enters the friendship. At its heart, the book is a meditation on the deep and complex nature of female connection. The two central figures find solace in one another, yet must confront the inescapable wall of individual solitude that defines human existence.
