L'uomo che parlava ai funerali

A sweet and touching story, intimate and universal: tears and smiles meet at the heart of what really matters.
A truly original, surprising, and poetic feel-good novel.

Every day, Renato attends the funerals of strangers to speak with the bereaved, praise the deceased, and console their families.
But why does he spend his days this way? And who is the mysterious woman following him, funeral after funeral?

Renato is a funeral expert. In his little notebooks, he meticulously records the time and place of each service, adding a few distinctive details about the deceased. Then he’s off, one funeral after another, all day, every day. A few well-chosen words and the job is done: friends and relatives are in tears, just as he wanted them to be.
Renato is alone, but it wasn’t always this way. Once, his life was filled with his exuberant wife Lidia and his vivacious son Luca. An ordinary family, a simple life: his job as a municipal employee, holidays at the beach, lots of love, a few quarrels. Until one day Renato’s life falls apart, and from that moment on, death becomes his constant yet unattainable companion, something he both avoids and seeks. But fate still has some surprises in store for Renato, starting with the mysterious woman, invariably dressed in black and also carrying a little notebook, who seems to be following him from funeral to funeral…
With a direct yet intensely poetic style, Mario Zangrando weaves a story that captures and moves us, reminding us that life can always change for the better, even when we seem to have lost all hope.