Canobbio, Andrea 1962-

PERSONAL:

Born 1962, in Turin, Italy.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Turin, Italy. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Einaudi (publisher), Turin, Italy, editor.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Vasi Cinesi, Einaudi (Turin, Italy), 1989.

Traslochi, Einaudi (Turin, Italy), 1992.

Padri di padri, Einaudi (Turin, Italy), 1997.

Indivisibili, Rizzoli (Milan, Italy), 2000.

Il Naturale disordine delle cose, Einaudi (Turin, Italy), 2004, translation by Abigail Asher published as The Natural Disorder of Things, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Andrea Canobbio is an Italian writer and an editor with the publishing house Einaudi. His fifth novel, Il Naturale disordine delle cose, is the first to be translated into English, as The Natural Disorder of Things. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the plot "reminiscent of Raymond Chandler."

The narrator, Claudio Fratta, is a garden designer in his thirties. Two events from his past overshadow all else—the bankrupting of his father by loan sharks and his brother's death from a drug overdose. New York Times Book Review contributor Vendela Vida wrote: "Canobbio is skilled at conjuring a very real and sympathetic Fabio—the scenes describing his death and Claudio's memories of him are some of the most powerful in the book."

Claudio is haunted by the image of a woman he took to a hospital emergency room after they both witnessed a man killed by a hit-and-run driver in a parking lot. When Elisabetta Renal contacts Claudio by telephone to ask for his help with her garden, he recognizes her voice. It is the same woman, and the beautiful wife of the wealthy, wheelchair-bound Rossi soon becomes his lover, but Elisabetta has another motive for hiring Claudio.

Library Journal critic Lisa Rohrbaugh commented: "A mystery, a romance, and more, this suspenseful novel builds to a climax that will thoroughly engross the reader." Vida concluded by noting: "A writer this talented deserves to have all his work in translation, so we can see not only his less successful experiments but also witness him at his meditative best."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Entertainment Weekly, July 21, 2006, Karen Karbo, review of The Natural Disorder of Things, p. 74.

Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2006, review of The Natural Disorder of Things, p. 532.

Library Journal, May 1, 2006, Lisa Rohrbaugh, review of The Natural Disorder of Things, p. 76.

New York Times Book Review, September 10, 2006, Vendela Vida, review of The Natural Disorder of Things, p. 25.