The Chill

Romano Bilenchi's coming-of-age story, never before published in English, is set in northern Tuscany in the 1950s. The small hill towns and rolling Tuscan countryside provide an evocative backdrop to a story that is thoroughly Italian and yet universal in its themes.
Following the death of his beloved grandfather, the teenage narrator of The Chill becomes increasingly introspective - he is removed from friends, family, and even from nature itself. His growing awareness of mortality and sexuality leads to a series of difficult, confusing encounters. Each small awakening, each intimation of the adult world with all its alarming ribaldry and vulgarity, drives him closer to isolation. His reluctant journey into maturity culminates in a seemingly innocent erotic adventure that, when discovered, will possess both the destructive potential of a natural disaster as well as the possibility for rebirth.

Romano Bilenchi was born near Siena, Tuscany, in 1909. He was a member of the Italian Resistance during the Fascist period and in the years following the end of WWII became an active member of the Italian Communist Party. Winner of the prestigious Viareggio Prize in 1972, he published over ten novels and several collections of short stories and essays in his lifetime, and was close friends with some of the major figures of his age, including Eurgenio Montale and Ezra Pound. Bilenchi died in Florence in 1989.