FICTION

THE MISSING PAGES by Cristina Comencini (Pantheon: $22; 268 pp.) No one knows why 19-year-old Federica, the youngest daughter in a wealthy Italian family, slowly stops talking. In spite of two histrionic sisters and a repressed mother who try with increasing panic to draw her out, Federica remains silent. This inexplicable descent and Federica’s anxious complex relationship with Guido, her father, are the main concerns of “The Missing Pages,” a deeply problematic novel. Perhaps this is the result of a faulty translation from the original Italian, but Comencini’s sentences, full of clumsy repetitions, almost seem to fight each other. The words don’t get along.

Here is a passage describing Federica’s mother’s feelings toward her husband. “Suddenly she realized she wasn’t alone. She looked at him. Nobody had helped him, he was alone. But she didn’t feel any compassion toward him. She felt compassion for herself, for her daughters. . . . Not for him. She felt him to be alien and guilty.”

The same phenomena applies to the plot. Federica’s silence is due to a trauma she suffered and refuses to acknowledge. When the mysterious event is finally uncovered at the very end, instead of showing it in a scene or even in detailed expository description, the payoff is revealed by someone who knew someone who knew someone who was there. Any heat the novel’s climax might have had is siphoned right out of it. Comencini has a genuinely original story. Let’s hope she’s able to better incorporate other much needed elements the next time around.