Faces on the Tip of My Tongue by Emmanuelle Pagano

Faces on the Tip of My Tongue

Emmanuelle Pagano

A fabulous collection of interconnected stories where familiar characters reappear like old friends. The man who waits on the bend of the mountain road where his family were tragically lost to him, wondering if they'll ever come back. The woman who devours many library books to discover small traces of other readers. All told in a gentle and sympathetic way making this book a real gem.

Extract
For a book to change us, to cleanse us, it must get deep inside, and those pink books, as I've told them hundreds of times, stay on the surface. They reach only the outer layers of the skin, our thoughts and memories. They smooth over worries with illusory balm, like the anti-wrinkle creams my friends spread on their faces. All those creams do is make the skin swell up, attacking and irritating it, a lie that they mistake for alleviation. It's just a temporary inflammation hiding the wrinkles. Puffy, that's what my friends are.
I've got lots of wrinkles around my eyes and mouth, from reading and laughing, and for me those wrinkles are the traces of my life, my fun. I'm alive and I read real books. Not dead books that simple submit to being read.
I'm alive, and I read, but I'm not the only one who reads those books, as I used to believe so proudly.
Parallels
  • Autumn by Ali Smith
  • Cartes Postales from Greece by Victoria Hislop
  • Alentejo Blue by Monica Ali