Cellulosa

Cellulosa is a dark coming-of-age novel about a group of young people in a tiny inland hamlet who turn grief, boredom, political language, adolescent desire and workplace death into a ridiculous but real terrorist cell. It is set around Trecase, a dying cluster of houses above the town of Caino, and the paper mill by the lake that dominates the valley. The title means “cellulose,” the raw material of paper, but it also points to “cellula”: a body’s cell, a political cell, a terrorist cell, a group of friends fused into one organism.

The prologue begins after the disaster. Re Bomba — real name Alberto, though almost nobody calls him that — is lounging in the house where he grew up when Pietro Ferri bursts in crying. Pietro’s older brother Orlando is dead. He has been found at the paper mill, beneath the boiler area. The official story is that Orlando discovered a fault and was trying heroically to prevent the boiler from exploding. Re Bomba understands the truth almost immediately: Orlando was not trying to save the factory. He was trying to blow it up.

Re Bomba runs to tell Futura. Futura already knows Orlando is dead, but she too understands what the official story gets wrong. For the village, “before the boiler exploded” means Orlando died trying to stop disaster. For Futura, it means Orlando failed because nothing exploded. She and Re Bomba realize the “sleeping cell” must become active again. Orlando is dead, but the plan survives.