An abandoned wife travels into the heart of the Eastern bloc in search of an elusive writer and her own identity in this wry and captivating satire Valentina has spent the last decade as a most dutiful wife: cooking meals, cleaning house, and translating dry liturgical writings for her husband, Ricardo, to use in his own bestselling literary endeavors. When Ricardo leaves her for another woman, Valentina realizes there is little in her life that is truly hers. So she resolves to strike out on her own as a journalist and track down the elusive novelist Milos Jarco, hiding somewhere in pre-glasnost Eastern Europe. Perhaps in finding Jarco, she can find herself as well. The gray world she enters is marked by tight lips, guarded secrets, and universal mistrust. Her search for Jarco hits roadblock after roadblock. But on her odyssey through the Soviet hinterland, Valentina encounters something unexpected. She discovers passion . . . and oddly enough, freedom.
"[Personal Effects], as wryly melancholy as the voice of [its] protagonist, searches out the philosophical notion of identity. . . . [Duranti] has drawn a captivating portrait. . . . Comic and deft."
Los Angeles Times
"[An] elegant and witty satire. . . . [Valentina's] dry observations counterbalance the farcical elements of the story, luring the reader into her fictional world with confidence and consummate charm."
Publishers Weekly
"Duranti's delicate, charming tale can be read in a sitting, and the prose is so seamless that at first you don't notice what interesting, weighty moral questions she's raising. Recommended."
