Hundred million

Teresa is 47, lives with her parents in an anonymous provincial town and teaches English. She’s neither pretty nor ugly, neither tall nor short, neither thin nor fat. She doesn’t express her wishes, even to order a coffee; her mother takes care of deciding and speaking for her. She reads books in English, the only way to read something without her mother understanding what, and writes a diary, the only place where her desires take form, the only way she manages to conceive them. Teresa “lives like a sole”, pressed flat against the seabed, not a bother, without anyone realising she’s there. Never having known love before, she becomes enamoured with Alessandro, an ex student of hers who abandoned school, much younger than her, handsome, “blonde, but with the behaviour of a brown-haired guy”. Alessandro is aware of how attractive he is and of Teresa being in love; he despises his own existence and sees money as his only way out, his obsession. Marta Cai tells Teresa’s story through intense, hard-edged, acerbic and disorienting writing, alternating a narrator who addresses the reader directly with the pages of the protagonist’s diary. The book also talks about provincial life, with a pinch of bitter irony. The locations, like the characters, become unclear and vague. Time is measured by the repetitive rhythm of local routine: shopping on market days, hairdresser on Saturday afternoon, mass on Sunday.  

Centomilioni (hundred million)
Marta Cai
Einaudi, 2023