Gaetano Mosca, middle-aged and far from his native Southern Italy, spends his days sorting through the things people leave behind. Over the years, he has learned to read entire lives in discarded objects: from the grief of losing a loved one to the joy of preparing for a new life. Then one day, an elderly man abandons an exquisitely carved side table. Gaetano recognizes the work as being similar to his father’s craftsmanship. Hidden inside is an unsent love letter of longing and guilt addressed to a woman named Anna.
Unable to let it go, Gaetano tracks down the table’s owner, Giulio Vergani, a lonely retired philology professor, and quietly inserts himself into the old man’s life without revealing the existence of the letter. As an unexpected friendship grows between them, Gaetano becomes obsessed with finding Anna and uncovering the story of a love that was never repaired—a search that will force both men to confront the lives they failed to live, and the possibility that it may not be too late to begin again.
I know, I may sound crazy to you, but I often have the feeling that things speak to me, that they want to tell me their side of the story. My name is Gaetano Mosca, and I work at a recycling center.
