The Natural Disorder of Things

Claudio Fratta is a garden designer; a naturally solitary man, he is nonetheless a playful companion to his nephews. He is at the same time obsessed with the determination to exact vengeance on the loan shark who bankrupted his father and with the pursuit of an enigmatic, alluring woman, one of his clients. Set in an Italian landscape in part unchanged, yet deeply marked by the twentieth century, The Natural Disorder of Things is peopled with an authentic cast of contemporary Italy: wealthy dilettantes, ex-convicts, right-wing secessionists, left-wing conspiracy theorists, and immigrant Moroccan, Chinese, and Sikh workers. Andrea Canobbio's masterful and fluid prose captures not only the character of Claudio—who cannot stop mulling over his past , including the death by drugs of his brother —but the central theme of the book: that his history is a burden, a legacy of guilt, silence, and misunderstanding. Professionally, Claudio imposes order on the landscape, but he cannot lay to rest the tragic past for himself and those he loved