Antonella Lattanzi: «Perfect motherhood does not exist. And I want to tell it “

Antonella Lattanzi (Bari, born in 1979) has gone from being a promise of Italian literature to an absolute certainty. His last two novels have women as protagonists: mothers and wives, in constant danger. Evil hovers over stories, crouched and silent, potential, absolute. Fear dwindles between the pages, keeps the reader in ambush. In This looming day (HarperCollins) the protagonist is Francesca, mother of two little girls, who arrived in Rome to follow the aspirations of her husband, Massimo.

Awaiting them is a new house in a condominium called Giardino di Roma; beyond a red gate there are modern buildings populated by smiling, kind, happy neighbors. Francesca leaves behind a hectic life as an art director, aspires to write an illustrated book for children and imagines more time with her daughters. The dream of a fuller motherhood condenses in the new life, of a love to be embraced with both hands, far from the Milanese frenzy. Yet, immediately, everything begins to crack. Fear is lurking and the magnificent neighbors, begin to appear as sinister shadows, look like the terrifying roundup of Rosemery’s baby (Roman Polansky). Her husband is increasingly absent and she begins to suffer memory lapses, jerks of nerves, it seems to her that the house is talking to her. All around her, she begins to fall, until the child of the condominium disappears, swallowed in the dark.

In the prologue of the book she explains that a story similar to the one she tells, had taken place in the condominium, where she lived as a child, in Bari. A story that her parents kept silent from her until she was eighteen. How much did “this secret” weigh in the desire to rework this story?
“Very. My sister and I grew up in an apartment building where we knew we had to be careful, keep our guard up. Yet it wasn’t clear why, our parents raised us in a protective climate, trying to keep us away from that bad story. When my father, at the age of eighteen, explained to me that a little girl had disappeared, it was as if everything had resurfaced. I had already left Bari and my mind went back to my childhood, to beautiful things but also to that “strange” climate. My gaze on memories has changed and I began to feel the desire to tell that story, to recall that secret. I wanted to tear down the wall of silence ».

Why didn’t you set the story in Bari? and why he chose Giardino di Roma?
“I needed a distance, I had to get away from reality. Giardino di Roma is a middle-class area, residential but not excessively expensive. It is far from the center. Distant. A place like that can arouse a sense of isolation, just like Francesca does. When she begins to have doubts about the people around her, she begins to feel the weight of loneliness. The grip of isolation. And he has no escape, outside that gate, there is nothing. The void”.

She talks about motherhood even in its dark side, Francesca has a precise idea of ​​what a mother should be like. Comprehensive, welcoming, always present, and yet sometimes it is not like that … the sense of guilt, not feeling adequate, explode. Up to crush it.
«We have been asking ourselves about being a mother since we were born. We grow up with a fairy tale idea of ​​motherhood that often does not coincide with reality. When Francesca begins to falter, when she realizes that her expectations are being denied by everyday life, she lacks a foothold, a network. Her gaze on herself is judgmental, she cannot be the mother she would like and this creates a short circuit, the darkness inside begins to emerge, the problems buried, explode. A chorus of voices stirred in her head, obsessive voices insisting on the thought of perfect motherhood. But perfect motherhood does not exist and I wanted to tell this aspect, to get closer to all those women who are crossed by the same feelings, by fragility, by the fear of not being up to par. “

Among the most interesting characters in the book, there is certainly the house. The house talks, gets angry, advises, sometimes it’s even ironic. How did the idea of ​​giving her a voice come about?
“I started writing this novel in 2017. I did a great job of preparation, weaving a complicated plot. A thriller that had to be flawless. Then, when I started to write, in the first scene in which Francesca enters the house, the house welcomes her. It was an idea born in writing, it was not foreseen. I physically began to see her, until she became a real character. I walked parallel to its growth, wondering myself if the house was a shore, an enemy, an omniscient point of view. He is the character I love most in the book, and reflects the thought that places have a value on us: if we are sick everything looks ugly or otherwise beautiful. Places can represent heaven, like hell ».

Without revealing anything we say that within the story, a passion is born, a very intense love …
«It is the first time that I tell the birth of a love, I wanted to make two people fall in love, oppose a vital force to evil. Love releases very strong energies, desire is intense. I concentrated on physicality, the call of the body, temptation: all elements that are clearly opposed to the sense of loss, fear, dismay. Desire represents another major break in the narrative. Resisting him is impervious … ».

In the exergue of the book there is a quote from Stephen King. With this book you are consolidating a certain type of literature. Occupying a position that no woman in Italy occupies.
«My parents are two professors, my sister and I grew up reading the great classics. But I remember perfectly well that when I was 12, in a supermarket, I found a copy of Misery and I immediately took it. Or did she take me? (ride). My mother tried to dissuade me but there was nothing to be done. And ever since, I’ve devoured Stephen King and Shirley Jackson. As a girl I wrote horror stories, splatter … I was overwhelmed by that kind of storytelling. What really fascinates me is the ability to tell the uncanny. Evil as supernatural, the evil that exists within us. What is the border line? Shining (the novel, ed) in a first reading it looks like a horror but it is above all the metaphor of a man devoured by his demons who sacrifices himself for the love of his son. A story of absolute power ».

This looming day will be nominated for the Strega award?
“Yup. And I am immensely happy ».