#RivetingReviews: Jennifer Sarha reviews SEPARATE ROOMS by Pier Vittorio Tondelli, translated by Simon Pleasance

Pier Vittorio Tondelli (1955–1991) was an Italian writer, journalist and playwright who enjoyed something of a cult reputation in Italy in the 1980s and 1990s. An author whose works spoke to and about the youth culture of the day, Tondelli was also known for his cultural criticism and his efforts in curating literary anthologies with young writers. Few of his works have been translated into English, and he remains fairly unknown in the anglophone world, but this might be about to change. Luca Guadagnino is in talks to direct a film based on Tondelli’s Separate Rooms, with Josh O’Connor in the main role.

Separate Rooms was first published in 1989, and translated into English in 1992. Out of print for several years, this same translation by Simon Pleasance has recently been reissued by Hodder & Stoughton, with a cover that looks curiously like a mashup of Michael Hutchence (who is, I might add, unmentioned in the book). The novel begins with Leo – a thirty-two-year-old Italian man from an upper-class family based in a small town by the Po, who makes his living as a writer. While flying over the Alps he is thinking about his past lover Thomas. These two things, Leo’s travels and his reflections on Thomas, constitute both the main thematics of the novel and the structural mechanism through which the narrative proceeds. We are told in the first chapter that Thomas had died a few years earlier; we are told about the difficulties in their relationship, and how Leo, although willing to be in love with Thomas and to share a life with him, was unwilling to share a house, let alone a room.

The main focus of the novel concerns Leo’s attempts to explain himself to himself, to understand the meaning of his relationship with Thomas, and to learn how to mourn him. The narrative is non-linear and with frequent time-jumps and disparate scenes: meetings with past and current lovers and with friends in different cities; sex scenes and death scenes; taking and seeking drugs; childhood memories and an adult visit to the family home. It’s a structure that lends itself easily to cinema.

In a depiction of a character teetering over a breakdown, these time-jumps serve their purpose. Leo’s mind seethes with reflections of youthful – or perhaps simply 1980s – alienation, and while the sentences are all internally coherent, there is frequent use of explanatory statements and melodramatic declarations, which might have landed better in Italian. Nevertheless, what makes the novel compelling is Leo’s insistent search for understanding, as he tries to map out different prisms, different memories or opinions on the mystery of his relationship with Thomas; all leading restless explanations, which fail to satisfy him but might satisfy the reader.

Reviewed by Jennifer Sarha

SEPARATE ROOMS

by Pier Vittorio Tondelli

Translated by Simon Pleasance

Published by Spectre (2025)

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Jennifer Sarha is a Finnish writer and scholar based in Luxembourg. She has an unmentionable day job, but her spare time is dedicated to literary and historical pursuits; reading voraciously in many languages and in translation.

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