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Zoe is a physiotherapist. She works in Genoa, driving by moped through the city streets between her treatments. A woman in her thirties, she is solitary, a little bad tempered, she tends to avoid friendships and, even more so, sentimental relationships. The family bonds with her sister and her mother are full of aggressiveness and unresolved grudges: they are the result of an event of the past, that Zoe calls the “Catastrophe”. But now that she seems to have found the «perfect man», though, she might try to deal with it.
The narration of Zoe’s story becomes the tale of Italy’s recent history, through the alleys of a coarse and lively Genoa, among characters portayed in their tiny everyday life – sometimes tragic, sometimes miserable, sometimes absolutely ordinary. The protagonist’s path is unsteady: for Zoe, just like it happens for anyone, overcoming a sorrow and changing her life is a process that requires awareness, will, and strain. It can’t be the magic of an instant.

The press on Escape Distance
«Bonucci puts terrorism’s victims and persecutioners with no verdict nor prejudice»—Il venerdì di Repubblica
«A light touch, a huge work of subtraction, an engaging novel that can be read in a sleepless night»—Il fatto Quotidiano
«This author has the gift of lightness, of thoughtfulness without shadow, and the rare quality of a clear and constant poetics: that of memories, of the attempt to reconstruct an epoch on the basis of personal experience»—Il Riformista

N.A.

Silvia Bonucci graduated from L’Université de Paris-Sorbonne. She lives in Rome, where she works as a translator. She has published the novels Voci d’un tempo (e/o, 2003) and Gli ultimi figli (Avagliano, 2006). Her debut won the Zerilli-Marimò prize.