THIS debut novel, originally published in Italian, is an exhilarating search for meaning and renewal. When Alex, a successful architect, embarks alone on a sea voyage of self-discovery, he meets a beautiful, mysterious woman who enflames his imagination and fills his sails with renewed dreams.

         

NOVEL EXCERPT

   It's foggy, but now and again sharp bands of golden light appear. A patch of sky breaks through, then more fog, sky, rays of light.

How strange!

   It's like seeking, finding, thinking, building enthusiasm and thinking it over again.

   Walking along the beach in such a mood induces you to reflect upon the experience of a lifetime, all concentrated in the few hours of one morning.

   This is what he thought after leaning his bike up against the trunk of a palm behind the low dune, heading south on foot, wherever the beach might take him. Every so often he would pick up a shell or a piece of one, examine it and toss it away after considering how destiny drags things and men over this world at will. But what is the will of destiny?

Difficult question.

   Perhaps he could have asked the sky, but just then more fog rolled in and the sky could not be seen. The fog, of course, would make no answer—it only steals away thoughts and hides them who knows where. Yet he knew those thoughts were real; he felt them living inside of him. He had the sensation that they were doggedly trying to get out. But it was foggy outside, and this lack of a clear-cut dimension may have discouraged them—coming out could mean being stolen
away and hidden.

Hidden where?

   In reality, he thought, it's not the fog that hides thoughts, but man—in his desire that they be buried in the sand, where they are safe and strike no fear in the world. The sand, though, is rife with creatures that dig holes of every shape and size. And no matter how microscopic those openings may be, thoughts manage to escape in tiny haggard groups; wet and chilled as they are, they feel weak and somewhat confused. Thus it will take them quite a while to reorganize and find the strength to set off and circulate throughout the world.

   Their tribulations are not over, however, because the world, seeing what bad shape they are in, does not immediately take them into consideration. It takes years and centuries for the world to note their presence, assess them and, lastly, to recognize them as an integral part of itself.
 
   “Look how many things you can figure out on the beach as the sun rises warm and slow and clears the fog.”