Florence in Ecstasy by Jessie Chaffee

 ´I forgot to eat´.

Just another lost girl, this time in Florence, I said to myself at the beginning of Florence in Ecstasy, the debut novel of Jessie Chaffee. If was one of those choices I made during the day, when trying to find some pleasant reading companion while waiting in between appointments or who knows what house-based chores. 

However, soon I was completely concentrated in the story, unable to think too much about any other random obligations I had on my to-do-list. Because this book was calling so much home. My body home.

Hannah, the main character and storytelling voice of the story suffers of eating disorder. She went to Florence first to travel, succeeded to find a job and tried to melt into the surrounding society. A rowing club - an activity hard for the body - some lavish meals, starts a relationship with a local guy from the club. And she´s convinced that this time is over. Until someone from the past she met randomly put into motion the trigger. The obsessive dismissal of the body. While working at the library, she has access to various memoirs of women saints, forcing to disconnect from their bodies: fasting, body mutilations. The body is the appearance, the soul is somewhere else, it is more important and eventually eternal, they said. For days and weeks afterwards, she is torturing her body, but this is just the reflection of a tortured soul. 

I don´t remember to have ever read such precise descriptions of feelings experienced during bouts of eating disorder. Deep traumatic dreams of food, days organised around eating or avoiding it completely. Forgetting to eat, because ´busy´. So many many more. I suffered for most of my teenage years of eating disorder. Inherited trauma, induced by the social environment I used to live at the time. It was all there and even if now I am healed, I know it can come back any time. Florence in Ecstasy is describing moments and thoughts that I rarely expressed myself into too many words.

But this book is more than a therapy report or medical account of a widespread condition. What I really liked about the book is that it actually builds a story, and the mental disease per se is inserted into the narrative, without being the exclusive topic of the narrative. It relates about Florence, its beauty and people, their family relationships and spontaneity.

Returning to traumatic life episodes, even only through the way of fiction, is a risky journey, but Florence in Ecstasy provided me with a lot of understanding about myself. That understanding that one needs to come at pace with oneself.

Rating: 4.5 stars