by Toby Olson
First published 1978
The narrative unfolds through poetic fragments as the protagonist wanders through Florence, piecing together fragments of personal history. Each poem becomes a window into moments of connection and loss, mapping the geography of both the Italian city and internal landscapes. The speaker confronts relationships that have shifted like ancient stones, searching for meaning in the spaces between what was said and what remains unspoken. Memory proves unreliable as guide through narrow streets and broader questions of identity. The tension builds between the desire to capture experience in language and the recognition that some truths resist words. At its heart, the work examines how we construct meaning from the debris of daily life.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, poetry, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Florence, Italy
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
44 pages · Paperback · The Permanent Press