The Old Man by the Sea by Domenico Starnone

 

Days spent by the water watching life pass by might not seem like much, but to Nicola, an 82-year-old Italian man, it’s everything. At that age, when bringing closure to your life’s arc seems like an important task, Nicola plops his chair down and remembers his mother, a beauty whose ego was a mismatch for her husband. In a young retail store associate, Lu, Nicola finds traces of his mother’s personality. The narrative is an eloquent capture of the joy and wonder in every routine, especially in the sunset of one’s life, and richly evokes the whimsy of small-town machinations.