When I sat down to write what you are reading now, I wasn’t exactly sure how to start it. I always try to write a clever opener, and after reading The Silence of the Wave by Gianrico Carofiglio, I thought that opener would have come a little more easily. Most of the books I read are business-related or guides of some sort, and I don’t read a lot of novels. Is this why I struggled with this?

As I write takeaways because I feel I am not the reviewer-type, I certainly had takeaways from this novel. It is a story of a former police officer in Rome, Roberto Marias, who treks across the Italian city each week to meet with his psychotherapist. Over the course of his visits he meets another patient of the doctor and a young boy, and the complexities of their lives become intertwined in his own, leading to a great plot twist at the end.

My takeaways are from the story and the book itself.

A translated novel can be engaging – Despite my 100% Italian-American heritage, I never learned Italian. It’s times like this, reading a novel translated from Italian to English, where I wish I could read and speak the language, so I could compare The Silence of the Wave in each language. That being said, the story was still compelling and enjoyable. I never read a translated work before, and I am inclined to do so again.

People need second chances – For reasons I won’t get into here to not spoil the plot, Roberto is no longer a police officer. Though he is not employed in his former career, he still thinks and acts like an officer of the law. Where he may not execute his former job completely going forward, there is no reason why he can’t be in a role where he can use his skills.

I need to read more novels – In a past takeaway I said this, but it has been a while since I have immersed myself in a long-form story, with the closest being issues of the literary magazine december I subscribe to. Even though I was stuck on the opening of this post, reading this story helped free my mind of how it usually processes thoughts.

The author Carofiglio has written other novels as well as a series of crime novels, and I am inclined to read others of his after reading The Silence of the Wave. Special thanks to Nick who sent me this book; I saw him post a write-up of it online, and when I asked him about the book, he dropped in the mail to me. Grazie Mille! As for who I will pass this along to, it is going to my Mother-in-Law, whom I hope enjoys it as much as I did.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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