Serena Bortone

“That summer, I realised that love had no limits, and I learned that it was dangerous. I have never loved anyone as much as Vittoria loved Paolo. And perhaps not even as much as Paolo loved my best friend, even though he deceived her.” Some stories are universal, others are inexorably linked to the moment in which they exist. This story began in the late 1980s, when there was no Internet and information was only passed on through gossip or books. When, in order to understand how sexuality worked, we relied on a friend who claimed to be more experienced, or on a pornographic magazine. Serena and Vittoria are inseparable, sharing everything since childhood: Greek translations and discos, escapes on mopeds from the prestigious high school in Rome’s Trieste district, and the thrill of freedom experienced during their long-awaited study trips to London. For both of them, their friendship is a source of salvation and support in the face of their feelings of inadequacy in a suffocating society. Vittoria appears to be the more confident and reactive of the two, while Serena is more analytical and cerebral. One summer, Paolo appears in Vittoria’s life and they fall in love, but it will be Serena who has the difficult task of discovering the truth about him, in a confrontation between victims and perpetrators that will undermine all certainties. Between complicity, betrayal, twists and turns, and trauma, A te vicino così dolce is a tender and compelling novel, but also painful and full of courage, about how much we are willing to be deceived by love. Serena Bortone recounts with sharp and fresh prose a season of life in which feelings seem to prevail over everything, dragging us into a vortex oscillating between illusion and abrupt returns to reality. She gives us a portrait of a generation that discovers it has never been as free as it was led to believe.