Translated by Gregory Dowling — Runaway Horses, a mystery by the Italian literary duo Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini, was first published in Italy in the 1980s and is only now available in English. This story, which is almost impossible to describe, presages today’s trend toward the mashup of literary genres and the popularity of crime fiction with speculative or paranormal elements, and it’s packed with clever observations.
Lawyer Enzo Maggioni and his wife Valeria, a long-married couple, slightly bored with each other, are driving to Siena to visit her brother and his friends who’ve retired to the countryside to live a simpler, communal life. Enzo’s wry commentary about this lifestyle choice provides a nice bit of humour.
Near Siena, they encounter a violent hailstorm. In the confusion of rain and bouncing ice pellets, they make a wrong turn, ending up at an enormous villa. The owners make them welcome, at first just to escape the maelstrom. Then, for first one reason then another and with the complicity of the puzzled couple, the Maggionis remain guests for several days.
Enzo and Valeria arrive in Siena just three days before the Palio, an annual event in which horses sponsored by various contrade (districts) race three laps around the town’s Piazza del Campo. It’s a tradition dating back hundreds of years, which the town’s 17 contrade compete vigorously and not always fairly to win.
Scenes in the novel alternate between race-day and events at the villa in the preceding days, building suspense for the climactic race itself. Because the authors stay very much in Enzo’s and sometimes Valeria’s heads, we know exactly how confused and surreal the situation is to them.
The opening chapter takes place the day of the Palio, when Enzo and Valeria observe the pre-race pageantry from different sides of the Piazza where it takes place. She’s busy flirting with the villa’s Count Guidobaldo, and Enzo has him arm about Ginevra, a delectable young woman also staying at the villa. Each of the ten contrade picked to participate in this year’s race – with names like Goose, Wave, She-Wolf, Caterpillar and so on – and the seven not picked, plus the six contrade voted out of existence several centuries ago, has its own colours, drummers, costumed marchers and banners. This festive, tradition-infused medieval parade is vividly described.
In another early scene, soon after Enzo and Valeria’s arrival at the villa, a diminutive man slips behind her, reaches up her skirt to pull down her panties, and bites her derrière. Her shrieks bring Enzo, and the man runs off, laughing. This episode marks a turning point in Valeria’s personality. Her inhibitions dissolve, a change described with classic Freudianism. Valeria’s attacker appears at the dinner table that night and is introduced as ‘King of the Jockeys,’ the Palio’s most fearless rider, prone to dirty tricks.
The next morning, there’s a dead body in the library. The police come and conduct repetitive, desultory interviews, none of which seem likely to bring any pertinent facts to light, although they conclude the death was not natural. Most of the residents’ thoughts are with the Palio, not the deceased, and it is at the Palio that these mysterious events come together.
Perhaps the story is analogous to switching television channels. The narrative certainly has elements of soap-opera (the tangled family relationships at the villa, even the question of who actually owns it – about which there are convoluted explanations, mercifully cut short), documentary (the history of the Palio), news of the day (provided by visitors from Rome), crime drama (the dead body and the police), horror (ghost riders), weather reports, and, of course, the main event, a sports spectacular. As for advertising, the numerous product mentions are notes of specificity in a sea of ambiguity.
So, while there is a murder and plenty of suspects, it’s hardly a typical crime novel and lacks a tidy resolution. It will be up to you to try to resolve the mysteries of this story in your own way, if you care to, or just let it be its wild and barely definable self. Whatever you decide, the book is unique and unforgettable.
We’ve reviewed another book by Fruttero and Lucentini, The Lover of No Fixed Abode, and interviewed translator, Gregory Dowling.
Bitter Lemon Press
Print/Kindle
£7.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
