Whereabouts

 ''We stop in the middle and look at the wall that flanks the river, and the shadows of pedestrians cast on its surface. They look like skittish ghosts advancing in a row, obedient souls passing from one realm to another. The bridge is flat and yet it's as if the figures - vaporous shapes against the solid wall - are walking uphill, always climbing. They're like inmates who proceed, silently, toward a dreadful end.'‘

A nameless city in Italy. A nameless woman who wanders its streets, observing, remembering, waiting. Its citizens are shadows, their actions a constant disappointment. When companionship offers nothing but an acute feeling of loneliness, being ALONE is the appropriate choice.

One of the most enticing, poignant novels I've ever read.

''My sleep grows lighter and then it abandons me entirely. I wait until someone, anyone, drives by. The thoughts that come to roost in my head in those moments are always the gloomiest, also the most precise. That silence, combined with the black sky, takes hold over me until the first light returns and dispels those thoughts, until I hear the presence of lives passing by along the road below me.'‘