The Natural Disorder of Things

Set in an Italian landscape both unchanged and deeply marked by the twentieth century, this is a murder mystery, a tale of erotic obsession, and a meditation on order and disorder, on fullness and emptiness, and on fathers and the traces they leave on their children.

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"The Natural Disorder of Things" is at once a murder mystery, a tale of erotic obsession, and a meditation on order and disorder, on fullness and emptiness, and on fathers and the traces they leave on their children. Claudio Fratta is a garden designer; a naturally solitary man, he is nonetheless a tender, playful companion to his nephews and a considerate colleague. But he's also obsessed with wreaking vengeance on the loan shark who bankrupted his father; pursuing an enigmatic, alluring woman; and racked with guilt at having watched his brother die from an overdose. Set in an Italian landscape both unchanged and deeply marked by the twentieth century, "The Natural Disorder of Things" is peopled with an authentic snapshot of contemporary Italy: wealthy dilettantes, ex-convicts, right-wing secessionists, left-wing conspiracy theorists, and immigrant Moroccan, Chinese, and Sikh workers.