Cecilia Tovel

Passing True Cecilia Tovel

Adeline, a once-aspiring novelist, has traveled the world over in search of a story to tell, but, when she locks herself away in the Italian Alps to tell it, she discovers that the effects of foreignness and a beautiful view, like the effects of love, yearning and pain, are no longer as potent as when she first felt them. All of the stories eventually turn out the same. While she struggles, mired in memory, the real lives of her greatest influences unfold elsewhere in Europe. Six other writers, dwelling in their own pasts and communing with the ghosts in their own minds, distort their own reflections. They have encountered one another along their ways, ruined and inspired each other without intent before moving on and reducing each other to intriguing characters in mundane fictions. Only Gabriele remains unscathed. An Italian student of Spanish literature, he has yet to lose faith in the poets and their universal truths. His optimism touches Adeline when they chance to meet, and their written correspondence reveals a connection that transcends language.