La Suggeritrice

Palermo, 1955. With her dream of becoming a soloist now shattered, Franca’s life goes on as usual. Her job is to accompany the pupils of a dance school run by a former Russian prima ballerina on the piano, and the notes, which could flow meaningfully from her expert fingers, are reduced to a simple, tiredly repeated hammering rhythm. Only in the evening, in her room, does Franca reclaim the music, every whisper, every languor that her existence lacks. Then, one day, a young girl enters Madame’s school, as flexible as she is frail, her skin as diaphanous as porcelain. And when Franca’s hands begin to move across the keyboard, that body comes to life, soaring into flight, her arms like wings, her feet making no sound as they touch the ground, her movements concealing and sublimating her fatigue. The girl, Cristiana, becomes a swan, and Franca is enchanted. In short, a very close bond is formed between the two: Cristiana adores Franca, and Franca, in taking care of this extraordinarily talented creature, in suggesting the path between the rocks of life, finds a light that has never touched her before. The friendship between the two women is clear, without secrets, until the day when Carlo, a history professor and opera lover, disrupts that balance. And it will be Franca, once again, who finds the right words for the competition that creeps in between them. A competition that Cristiana doesn’t even know she’s taking part in. With La suggeritrice, Emanuela E. Abbadessa returns to bookshops with a story full of grace, which recounts the hardship and splendour of friendship, the luminous effort of being reborn as oneself.