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Transitioning to writing a novel might not have been easy for Matteo Caccia, a radio host for years, but it was probably an inevitable need to fulfill. For those who don't know him yet, the author skillfully navigates between hosting Pascal, aired on Radio 2, and “Don't tell my mum,” a story show at the Pinch in Milan, where, in both cases, stories are told. And if we all presumably have at least one interesting story to tell, Matteo Caccia's merit in his programs has been in refining the right approach to tell it.
The silence begins when he sets out to cover the tracks of Zambo, the son of a partisan, who one day decides to leave Genoa and head towards Maremma, along with his dog Tobia. The story, slender and blurred, draws inspiration from the tales of Pietro, the son of Giorgio Gimelli, a partisan hero who took part in the liberation of Genoa at the age of twenty. Zambo has a mission to complete, and along his path, he encounters new acquaintances, a faint love, the rediscovery of an old friend. There's a demanding past to retrace, which is why on this backward path, one proceeds with caution. Breath is taken to recount it in small sips. The human story silently inserts itself into this untouched environment of the Apennines, where every gesture is dictated solely by natural, ancient, and primordial laws, those of survival.
Thus, this journey is undertaken following the fine and fierce line dividing our now "domesticated" city being from the wild nature we are repudiating. From the first encounter in the woods, the wolf, even as a metaphor, is always present, either openly or hidden. Wolves are returning to the mountains and forests of the Apennines, and the author, who also consulted the (WAC) Wolf Apennine Center, which monitors and studies their movements, focuses on the challenges but also on the intrinsic fascination of an animal that obeys the strong and ancestral call of nature.
The novel is divided into four parts, possibly with too abrupt an acceleration of events towards the end, but overall the author skillfully demonstrates mastery over the story, parts of which prominently feature the protagonist's first-person narrative voice. Words must adapt to the places; hence they are sparse and measured, as any mountain tale would demand. A modest thing compared to the descriptive weight left by traversing with silence places and villages in a state of abandonment along the way.
There is much (too much?) of the wild nature and the raw, cutting style of Cormac McCarthy, influences which the author himself has not denied. Not exactly what one would call a romantic and idyllic view of nature, on the contrary, its face is fierce and ruthless, in this novel that initially was to be titled “The Wild Path” and reveals its sharp profile. But it's also half of our face and one we cannot hide from ourselves.
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