MilanoNera Book Review Translated

Camilla Trinchieri has translated the September 2008 MilanoNera newspaper review of the Italian version of her book The Price of Silence:

"Choosing to write a psychological novel in the form of a legal thriller, Camilla Trinchieri creates a decisively beautiful book that infuses new life in a genre that has become stale and repetitive....And the author's remarkable ability to filter emotions through a seemingly (with An-ling one can never know) "Chinese" culture and sensibility imbues the novel with a special light."

Look at the statements the reviewer made!

"decisively beautiful book"
"infuses new life in a genre that has become stale and repetitive"
"author's remarkable ability to filter emotions through a seemingly [...] "Chinese" culture and sensibility"
"imbues the novel with a special light"

Another Interview! MilanoNERA

Another Italian interview with Camilla Trinchieri was printed in the September 2008 issue of the Milan, Italy newspaper, MilanoNERA.

Visit the MilanoNERA main site.
Read the full September issue.
Read a copy of the Italian interview interview.

Here's the Italian text from the review.

New York. Inizia il processo a Emma Perotti, insegnante italoamericana di mezza eta’, accusata di aver ucciso una sua studentessa cinese, l’enigmatica An-ling. Chi fosse veramente An-ling e quale fosse il legame che la univa a Emma viene rivelato gradualmente attraverso l’alternarsi delle varie fasi del processo ai ricordi di Emma, di suo figlio adolescente Josh e del marito Tom. Scegliendo di scrivere un romanzo psicologico nelle forme del legal thriller, Camilla Trinchieri realizza un libro decisamente bello, capace di infondere vita nuova a un genere sempre piu’ stantio e ripetitivo.

L’autrice, americana, ma di origine italiana e nata a Praga, rende senza fatica le diverse sfumature dei personaggi e i loro drammi, costruendo gradualmente attorno a loro una vicenda ambigua pur nella sua semplicita’. Alla fine, come in Rashomon, la verita’ rimarra’ inconoscibile; ma, per la cultura occidentale, potrebbe anche essere sufficiente un ragionevole dubbio…

Oltre a un’avvincente vicenda processuale, il libro offer un’analisi rigorosa e senza sconti delle tensioni che dilaniano la famiglia media americana. Ogni carattere e’ delineato con precisione: Emma, tormentata da un’antica tragedia, che cerca un riscatto nella pulsione materna verso una ragazza spuntata dal nulla; il figlio, combattuto fra emozioni infantili e la scoperta adolescenziale dell’erotismo, il marito, inconsapevolmente meschino ed egoista. Ma sopra tutto svetta il personaggio di An-ling, ragazza cinese tenerissima e bugiarda, singolarmente infantile e dura, morbosamente bisognosa di affetto ma nel contempo capace di manipolare le persone ai propri fini. E la singolare capacita’ dell’autrice di filtrare le emozioni attraverso una cultura e una sensibilita’ apparentemente (con An-ling non si puo’ mai dire) “cinesi”, investe il libro di una luce speciale.

The Cure for the Wait

Friends around me are bemoaning the end of summer, but I’m eager to move forward, hunker down to work on something new. I gave myself a break after I shipped Finding Alice off to the Italian publisher. I did a pastel portrait of a beautiful friend, painted a new baby’s name on paper (an apple for an “a,” an eye for an “e” and so forth), water-colored flowers on notes thanking friends for delicious dinners. I even tried to play golf with disastrous results. Mostly I waited. To hear if the agent I’d queried wanted to read Alice, to hear if it was a go with the Italians. Waiting, that’s part of the job description of a writer. Wait for an agent, wait for a publisher, wait for the reviews, wait for the royalty statement. I hate it.

There’s only one cure for it—plunge into a new world of my own making. Easier said than done. Where’s the idea? I do want to write a historical, something from way back. I’ve gone so far as to order a book about the period I’m interested in, but the historical needs at least two years of research and I need to write now.

I put the research book on my night table and dug into other books--Story of a Marriage, The Maytrees, Out Stealing Horses and two dread-provoking books by Ruth Rendell. Reading makes me want to write all the more, but I still didn’t have an idea.

A few weeks ago, I met three women for our monthly lunch. An out-of-town friend of one of them joined us. Diane had rented an apartment in the city for a month from a landlord she had never met before, and when she walked into the living room she saw something that startled her. It wasn’t anything scary, just odd. We continued to chat about other things—mostly politics given the times—but my mind’s eye held on to the scene of Diane walking into a home she’d never been in before, owned by someone she’d never met and seeing…what? I can’t say because there it was—the seed of an idea.

I let it sit in a warm nook of my brain to sprout. As the days passed a few tiny leaves began to show, but it’s still pretty weak. I have a premise that involves two women, a man, changing names, an old crime. No title. No middle. No end. That’s normal for me. I like to discover as I write.

The first scene unspooled in my head in the early hours of last week. I’m only half awake at five, six o’clock in the morning, but it’s a magical time for me. The world hasn’t entered my consciousness yet. The only sounds might be from my husband’s soft breaths or the birds on our neighbors’ terrace—reassuring sounds. I keep my eyes closed and start weaving a new world.

In my fully awake hours I’ve been jotting down notes on whatever pieces of paper I find handy at the moment I need them. They’re barely legible and full of scratched out lines, but it doesn’t matter. I’m ready to take the plunge. Wish me luck.