2024-10-27 22:18:00
«The house of silences» (Longanesi) comes out on Tuesday 29 October. Pietro Gerber, child psychologist and hypnosis expert, returns to the new adventure of the master of thrillers. Dreams are scary, but so is staying awake…
Where am I? This is the question that the little patient asks the doctor who is treating her in the opening pages The house of silence (Longanesi, in bookstores from Tuesday 29 October), the new novel by Donato Carrisi (1973). A sort of prologue in which there are already many themes and elements that will then be found in the main story: a minor who needs help but still doesn’t know why; a professional who tries to be useful but still doesn’t know how; psychology as a tool to investigate the deepest self; science (and pseudosciences) to capture something that goes beyond the visible.
Where to find Pietro Gerber, a child psychologist with specialization in techniques and therapies that use hypnosis, Carrisi’s most assiduous readers already know, the others will soon discover. Gerber, one of the author’s most beloved characters, nicknamed “the child putter”, is in his office, the same as that of his father, now deceased, also a psychologist, a pioneer in the field of hypnotherapy, in an attic overlooking Piazza della Signoria, in Florence. Between the two a deep, complicated relationship, never completely resolved: a life, that of the son, made of habit, solitude and work carried out almost like a mission. It is there that a couple of parents find him and turn to him as a last resort: at first glance, in their eyes, Gerber recognizes the fear. His son Matias, nine years old, suffers from sleep disorders: from an extroverted and cheerful boy he quickly became the opposite, closed and sad: now he has no friends, he no longer leaves the house and when he falls asleep he wakes up screaming. What made him lose his serenity was a dream in which “a woman with a dark dress and long black hair” appears: a silent presence, who observes, who is a little restless and who above all never abandons the boy’s unconscious. “Sleep is a very precise mechanism – observes the specialist – it serves to clean up our mind, to reset it”. And this is what Gerber, as a true investigator of nightmares, intends to do with the little patient.
Gerber, already the protagonist of three thematically similar thrillers – “twin” novels Carrisi himself had previously defined them – The house of voices (2019), The house without memories (2021) e The house of lights (2022) — he presents himself with what has become his stage costume over time: a modest, almost neglected appearance, inseparable Clark shoes on his feet, a raincoat that he often wears even indoors and in his pocket a portable metronome, the main instrument in his work as a “sleeper”. This time the somersault compared to past cases is double: the specialist, having gained the child’s trust, must enter the mind of little Matias while he is fast asleep in order to begin his work; induce hypnosis when the sleeper is in the REM sleep phase and only then try to understand where the figure of the disturbing silent woman comes from and how to convince her to leave. Before she – but Gerber hasn’t told his parents this yet – emerges from Matias’s dreams and becomes a psychosis for him, an even more true and real presence.
The therapist Gerber will do more, risking a lot, violating a fundamental rule of those who do this job as well as a precious teaching from his father: «Never open doors that you cannot close again». Will he be able to establish a channel of dialogue? Will he give the word to the silent woman? Will he be able to move deep enough to leave no traces in the child’s psyche? Readers have the pleasure of discovering the answers for themselves.
The characteristics of the places, the appearance of the landscapes and buildings, weather conditions (thunderstorms and heavy rain are very frequent here) in Carrisi’s books they become a spokesperson and reflection of something else, of deeper and more hidden meanings, this story is no exception; while the author’s prose confirms itself as rarefied, direct and essential: it adheres to the characters, dresses them making them impervious to the passage of time; figures and situations that offer little basis for placing them in a historical moment, with the exception of a few pieces of music, a few brands of cigarettes, a few models of cars…
There is no here and now, but the certainty remains that Gerber, as usual, will throw himself into the challenge headlong, almost forgetting to eat, to sleep, to look in the mirror, to set a boundary between involvement and suggestion. The effect on the reader is that the concern for the child’s fate is added to that for the balance of the psychologist himself. Never before has Carrisi’s narrative bestselling author with millions of copies worldwideit is populated with ghosts, strange presences, almost warnings: they are inhabited silences, gray areas, white noises, waves, rustles, air currents. Like “an inexplicable discomfort similar to the sudden gust of a cold wind” that announces the entry of the parents into Gerber’s study. Like the irrational fear that accompanied him when he returned to his large empty house where every evening he pretended to sense the presence of ghosts and whispered to the silence. Like the disturbing sensation that will overtake him when he enters for his nocturnal sessions with the little patient in the villa under renovation just outside the city where Matias’s family lives.
The author, with a formula that is identical to the end of each of Gerber’s books, underlines the real existence of the hypnotic practices he writes about and the effects they produce. As if this were enough to reassure the reader who is instead more scared not when the story ventures into the labyrinths of the mind but when the novel resembles the reality that lies outside, when violence breaks into everyday life and marks the times of existence, leaving no margin for freedom.
Like its protagonist, the writer hypnotizes the reader with a story that leaves you incredulous, dazed, amazed, sometimes even disoriented, but which never loses its pace.
Where am I? The reader also asks himself this when he enters with an act of trust, almost of faith, well rewarded in the novel of an author at ease in territories where reality and the evidence of reality become more vague and uncertain and where instead it is the grip of the narrative is solid and sure. In the book a colleague questions the specialist regarding the case of Matias: «I imagine that you have probed the child’s psyche with hypnosis. What did you find?”. And he replies: «A story». Precious asset for the psychologist, but even more so for the writer.
The profile
The new novel by Donato Carrisi The house of silence it is published by Longanesi (pp. 416, €23); comes out on Tuesday 29 October and marks the return of hypnotist Pietro Gerber, present in The house of voices (2019), The house without memories (2021) e The house of lights (2022). Donato Carrisi (Martina Franca, Taranto, 1973) has sold 5 million copies worldwide and has been translated into over 30 languages. Among his bestsellers: The prompter (2009), The girl in the fog (2015) e The education of butterflies (2023). All the books by Carrisi, who is also a director, are published by Longanesi
The tour with readers begins
The new novel by Donato Carrisi, The house of silence (Longanesi), comes out Tuesday 29 October. The author presents it as a preview on Monday 28th, at 6.30 pm, live on the «Libraio» Facebook page while on the 29th, at 6.30 pm, Carrisi will be in Milan at the Mondadori Duomo bookshop for a copy signing. The presentations continue throughout November: on the 5th, at 8.45pm, it will be in Casarsa (Udine), Pier Paolo Pasolini theatre; on the 6th, 6pm, in San Donà di Piave (Venice), Moderna bookshop and, at 9pm, in Treviso, Canova bookshop; again on the 9th, 12 pm, in Rome, Nuova Europa I Granai bookshop. Followed by other dates including Turin and Aosta
October 27, 2024 (modified October 27, 2024 | 11:18 pm)
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«The house of silences» (Longanesi) comes out on Tuesday 29 October. Pietro Gerber, child psychologist and hypnosis expert, returns to the new adventure of the master of thrillers. Dreams are scary, but so is staying awake…
Where am I? This is the question that the little patient asks the doctor who is treating her in the opening pages The house of silence (Longanesi, in bookstores from Tuesday 29 October), the new novel by Donato Carrisi (1973). A sort of prologue in which there are already many themes and elements that will then be found in the main story: a minor who needs help but still doesn’t know why; a professional who tries to be useful but still doesn’t know how; psychology as a tool to investigate the deepest self; science (and pseudosciences) to capture something that goes beyond the visible.
Where to find Pietro Gerber, a child psychologist with specialization in techniques and therapies that use hypnosis, Carrisi’s most assiduous readers already know, the others will soon discover. Gerber, one of the author’s most beloved characters, nicknamed “the child putter”, is in his office, the same as that of his father, now deceased, also a psychologist, a pioneer in the field of hypnotherapy, in an attic overlooking Piazza della Signoria, in Florence. Between the two a deep, complicated relationship, never completely resolved: a life, that of the son, made of habit, solitude and work carried out almost like a mission. It is there that a couple of parents find him and turn to him as a last resort: at first glance, in their eyes, Gerber recognizes the fear. His son Matias, nine years old, suffers from sleep disorders: from an extroverted and cheerful boy he quickly became the opposite, closed and sad: now he has no friends, he no longer leaves the house and when he falls asleep he wakes up screaming. What made him lose his serenity was a dream in which “a woman with a dark dress and long black hair” appears: a silent presence, who observes, who is a little restless and who above all never abandons the boy’s unconscious. “Sleep is a very precise mechanism – observes the specialist – it serves to clean up our mind, to reset it”. And this is what Gerber, as a true investigator of nightmares, intends to do with the little patient.
Gerber, already the protagonist of three thematically similar thrillers – “twin” novels Carrisi himself had previously defined them – The house of voices (2019), The house without memories (2021) and The house of lights (2022) — he presents himself with what has become his stage costume over time: a modest, almost neglected appearance, inseparable Clark shoes on his feet, a raincoat that he often wears even indoors and in his pocket a portable metronome, the main instrument in his work as a “sleeper”. This time the somersault compared to past cases is double: the specialist, having gained the child’s trust, must enter the mind of little Matias while he is fast asleep in order to begin his work; induce hypnosis when the sleeper is in the REM sleep phase and only then try to understand where the figure of the disturbing silent woman comes from and how to convince her to leave. Before she – but Gerber hasn’t told his parents this yet – emerges from Matias’s dreams and becomes a psychosis for him, an even more true and real presence.
The therapist Gerber will do more, risking a lot, violating a fundamental rule of those who do this job as well as a precious teaching from his father: “Never open doors that you cannot close again”. Will he be able to establish a channel of dialogue? Will he give the word to the silent woman? Will he be able to move deep enough to leave no traces in the child’s psyche? Readers have the pleasure of discovering the answers for themselves.
The characteristics of the places, the appearance of the landscapes and buildings, weather conditions (thunderstorms and heavy rain are very frequent here) in Carrisi’s books become a spokesperson and reflection of something else, of deeper and more hidden meanings, this story is no exception; while the author’s prose confirms itself as rarefied, direct and essential: it adheres to the characters, dresses them making them impervious to the passage of time; figures and situations that offer little basis for placing them in a historical moment, with the exception of a few pieces of music, a few brands of cigarettes, a few models of cars…
There is no here and now, but the certainty remains that Gerber, as usual, will throw himself into the challenge headlong, almost forgetting to eat, to sleep, to look in the mirror, to set a boundary between involvement and suggestion. The effect on the reader is that the concern for the child’s fate is added to that for the balance of the psychologist himself. Never before has Carrisi’s narrative bestselling author with millions of copies worldwide been populated with ghosts, strange presences, almost warnings: they are inhabited silences, gray areas, white noises, waves, rustles, air currents. Like “an inexplicable discomfort similar to the sudden gust of a cold wind” that announces the entry of the parents into Gerber’s study. Like the irrational fear that accompanied him when he returned to his large empty house where every evening he pretended to sense the presence of ghosts and whispered to the silence. Like the disturbing sensation that will overtake him when he enters for his nocturnal sessions with the little patient in the villa under renovation just outside the city where Matias’s family lives.
The author, with a formula that is identical to the end of each of Gerber’s books, underlines the real existence of the hypnotic practices he writes about and the effects they produce. As if this were enough to reassure the reader who is instead more scared not when the story ventures into the labyrinths of the mind but when the novel resembles the reality that lies outside, when violence breaks into everyday life and marks the times of existence, leaving no margin for freedom.
Like its protagonist, the writer hypnotizes the reader with a story that leaves you incredulous, dazed, amazed, sometimes even disoriented, but which never loses its pace.
Where am I? The reader also asks himself this when he enters with an act of trust, almost of faith, well rewarded in the novel of an author at ease in territories where reality and the evidence of reality become more vague and uncertain and where instead the grip of the narrative is solid and sure. In the book a colleague questions the specialist regarding the case of Matias: “I imagine that you have probed the child’s psyche with hypnosis. What did you find?”. And he replies: “A story”. Precious asset for the psychologist, but even more so for the writer.
The new novel by Donato Carrisi The house of silence is published by Longanesi (pp. 416, €23); comes out on Tuesday 29 October and marks the return of hypnotist Pietro Gerber, present in The house of voices (2019), The house without memories (2021) and The house of lights (2022).