Generally speaking, I think it is better not to know very much the authors of the books: yes, it's okay to see the photo of their face, yes, it's okay to know what age they are, where they were born and what studies they did, but nothing more. This is because most of the time you are disappointed in their personality and their way of being, to the point that you no longer read their books, which perhaps deserve to be read instead. This is the case, for me, of Michela Murgia, of whom I have hardly read anything just because I don't like her way of being. I find her opinionated and arrogant. However, to overcome my limitation, I read Accabadora, and I must say that I did well. Nothing memorable, but a good 4 star book. Accabadora is set in 1950s Sardinia and deals with rather delicate issues, such as adoption and euthanasia. The protagonist is a little girl named Maria, who is adopted by Bonaria Urrai, the elderly seamstress of the village. Bonaria asks the child's family for consent to take care of her and obtains it without resistance, given that Maria was considered a burden for her family. Maria will soon discover that Bonaria is not an ordinary woman: in fact, she sees the dark parts of people, she knows how to do spells and, when asked, she enters people's homes to bring death. Maria creates a mother-daughter relationship with Bonaria and in the village the little girl is called “fill'e anima”, that is, “daughter of the soul”, the daughter that Bonaria never had as a young woman and who arrives late in life as a blessing from heaven. Bonaria gives Maria a home and the opportunity to get educated, asking her in exchange only to keep her company and take care of her a little. We soon understand that Bonaria is a mysterious woman: she usually loves to dress in black, she talks very little, people look at her with respect and fear, she often talks about life and death, she often goes out alone at night .... And in fact, after a while we discover that Bonaria is the accabadora of the village, the finisher, the one who knows spells. She is the last mother, the woman who helps those without any hope to reach the peace of the afterlife, to die in peace. Maria only discovers this when she finds out from her friend Andrìa, who one night had surprised Bonaria in the act of doing her charitable work towards his brother, who had a leg amputated and who had begged for her to end his suffering. Maria is shocked and decides to leave Sardinia to work as a nanny in a Turin family, where she creates a relationship with the two children of the family, Anna Gloria and Piergiorgio. The relationship with the boy, however, is seen as dangerous by his parents and Maria is fired. One day, after almost two years, Maria receives a letter from her sister asking her to return to Sardinia, because Bonaria is not well. Maria then returns to the village to respect the promise she had made many years earlier, namely to take care of Bonaria.
Bonaria experiences excruciating, unbearable pains and Maria, seeing her suffer so much, makes new assessments on the issue of euthanasia, wondering if she should operate that on Bonaria. But luckily, in the moment of the decision, Bonaria dies naturally, thus avoiding Maria to resort to the extreme gesture, leaving Maria with the awareness that she has fully understood Bonaria only in those moments. The book is intense with atmospheres on the edge between reality and suspended in time, where ancient legends unchanged for centuries coexist with current events.
I don't like Michela Murgia, but this book really deserves to be read.