1957. The Soviets have just launched the little dog Laika into space. Luciana is nine years old and rebels against taking her First Communion, declaring she’s a “communist”. She’s gotten her passion for politics from her elder brother, Arturo, a strange boy who lives in his own world, perhaps of the drugs he takes for epilepsy. He’s fixated on the Soviet Union and especially with the space race, speaking of nothing else. Growing up, Luciana begins to feel ashamed of this rather bizarre older brother. There are other problems in the family, too, because Luciana cannot abide her stepfather. When she’s fifteen Luciana begins to frequent the chapterhouse of the party her father belonged to, but nothing goes easily there either. And so Luciana, like the first woman cosmonaut Valentina Tereskova, will have to find her own way by herself. |
