The Queue at the Post Office

After "Chi dice e chi tace", Chiara Valerio takes us back to Scauri, on the border between Lazio and Campania. Lingering echoes of Vittoria still haunt this place, three years after her mysterious disappearance. Here, on the beaches where clams have lately begun to vanish mysteriously, we meet a lawyer, Lea Russo. On the very day she turns forty-three, Lea finds herself having to deal with a new and apparently straightforward murder case. A young girl, Agata Palmieri, has been found dead, and everyone is convinced that her mother, Giovanna, is guilty. As in her previous novel, the plot of this crime drama serves merely as a pretext. Once again, this is an existential exploration that delves into her characters’ inner worlds, exploring the intricate themes that surface through the story. It reflects on motherhood and care, but also on the weight one bears when devotion to another person becomes absolute and so consuming that one’s own sense of self begins to fade away. The quest for truth is, therefore, also a search for identity – particularly that of the women who appear in this story: mothers, nuns, daughters, the accused, and the investigators – each constrained by the tight social fabric of a small provincial town, yet always striving to break out of it. True to the tradition of Italian provincial detective stories, the town itself becomes a microcosm that reflects broader social complexities, and the queue at the post office turns into a scene of generational and social confrontation, where gossip and unspoken truths rise gently to the surface.

La fila alle poste
Chiara Valerio
Sellerio, 2025