La tabacchiera di Otto Schmitt

Colombano Sant’Isidoro is a town of four hundred souls where nothing ever happens. In the early 1960s Carmelina arrived there, married to a stranger to escape misery and ended up at Teresa’s home, the mother-in-law, who governs the family as an absolute monarch. The young woman resists as she can, while fate builds a complex plan around her, dragging singular people, different from each other, to that place forgotten by God: a rebellious noblewoman, a woodcutter in love, a family of gossips, a Sicilian marshal, a terrorist, a clumsy hunter. In the freezing cold of a winter snow, their paths will cross unexpectedly, someone will die and someone else will disappear, without any explanation. Against all odds, the protagonist’s fate will be overturned by a small alabaster box: Otto Schmitt’s snuffbox. Appeared in a soldier’s pocket, then on a game table, then become a lucky charm, toy and finally a token of love, will put an enigmatic seal to the history.

The novel is set in an imaginary rural village, a town of four hundred inhabitants called Colombano Sant’Isidoro, in north-western Italy, in the years between 1960 and 1974. The story combines totally fictional elements, fantasy, with realistic historical data.

The writing is clear, suggestive and strongly representative of a whole historical, environmental and emotional climate. The style is marked by a penetrating essentiality. The words, the gestures, the expressions attributed to the characters are \’those\’ and could not be replaced. The images are incisive. The reconstruction is not only introspective, but also scenic and environmental.

The reading is very pleasant and light, the style is polite, understandable to all, with a harmonious and musical period. It could be read all in one breath. Here and there there is also a lyrical spirit  indicating a certain predisposition to poetic compositions.