Men and dogs

This article is published in issue 19 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 7 May 2024.

«I usually write about real-life characters: I did it for Marguerite Duras, for Natalia Ginzburg and Pier Paolo Pasolini. This time I wanted to try to come out and talk about myself.”

But Sandra Petrignaniwife three times, mother once, already a grandmother and always a writer, does it sideways and reveals her life by writing about her «differently hairy quadrupeds»: Rocky, Mago, Soledad, Querida and little Tito mark the flow of her existence, which she recounts in Autobiography of my dogshis latest book just released by new Gramma series by Feltrinelli. In reality those dogs, who are daily roommates in his beloved home in Umbria, are a pretext to talk about men, separations, moves, love and motherhood.
And she, an early feminist, a twenty-year-old in the Seventies, freed herself from respectable hesitations and in her story she also lets us recognize the errors, without too much embarrassment: «Even if I regret some things, I believe that one should not refuse nothing, because it would be as if he were rejecting a part of himself. I am this person today because I did those things, even if they were wrong, even if, and I'm sorry, they made someone suffer.”

And who would he have made suffer, for example?
«Let's say that I am an unstable person, I have not been faithful in love, never capable of building much. I envy those couples who last for years, who have found a way to tolerate each other without throwing tomatoes at each other, who have been able to overcome moments of crisis. I have been conditioned by the love of fairy tales, but the truth is that perhaps I have never met Prince Charming: I believe that mine were all celestial princes, from whom I have always asked too much respect than what I gave.”

Definitely merciless towards herself.
«I face the truth. The important thing is to understand each other and take responsibility. I must also say that with age I have learned to forgive myself, perhaps also thanks to the many years of analysis.”

In the notice to readers you say that in this book everything is true and everything is false. In what sense?
«When you write, in order not to get lost in the complexity of reality, you end up having to invent passages and in any case, to be more interesting and be read, you always need your own interpretation. Having said that, the reality I have told does not differ too much from the facts that actually happened.”

When she writes about her first husband's funeral she mentions her children, the one she had with her and the others, she writes about the mothers of these other children and the partners her ex-husband had before and after her. She exudes a nice open family atmosphere. What is her family for you?
«When I write about family I think of people who love each other. Today my family are my dogs, because I share my daily life with them. And then, of course, for me family is my son Guido, he is my granddaughter.”

What kind of mother are you?
«I was a single mother: I separated from Guido's father early. But, at the end of the day, it seems to me that he is happy to have me as a mother and I am very much in love with him. When I was young I was anorexic and it wasn't a given that I could have children and when he arrived he revealed a positive part of myself.”

Before his son, he mentioned his beloved dogs. What is it about them that she likes so much?
«In the countryside I walk with the dogs along paths free from people and things. In recent times I have been less and less in the company of my species and more and more with the animal lineage. Dogs, in general, are more understanding: when they don't understand something, they don't struggle to figure it out, they stop asking themselves the problem and move on. I try to learn from them. And then dogs don't know too many oscillations, while men are subject to continuous ups and downs, it's too tiring. And so I end up talking more often with animals, with whom I now also have a certain telepathy: every now and then it's as if I see in animals a capacity for communication that goes beyond what we are used to seeing, which doesn't need words, and is made of pure understanding.”

And, speaking of the afterlife: what relationship does it have with the thought of death?
«I don't really know what I believe in, I don't know what the afterlife is, but the fact that it can all end here, like this, honestly seems like a great waste to me. Maybe the thing I can believe in is reincarnation: because in my life I have had signs, powerful déjà vu. Dreams basically show us that there is a different reality, which we may not perceive, but which we feel in some way. Jung, when asked if he was a believer, replied that he didn't need to believe, because he knew. It's not presumption, but rather a sensation. And it's not for nothing that I'm working on Jung now: his thoughts will be at the center of my next book.”