A Novel by Maria Rago (Paperback)
Dear
Wall
The novel of the man who signed himself NOF4
Rome, 1948. A young man says the wrong thing to a public official and is handed a diagnosis instead of a sentence. Ten years later he is transferred north to San Girolamo in Volterra, where the intake inventory takes his shoes, his coat and his coins, and misses the buckle of his belt. In the yard, he discovers that the buckle bites into plaster. He begins with his own name and one short sentence: I am here. Over the next decade, in around an hour of yard time a day, Fernando covers the wall with an empire, a rank no tribunal ever granted him, and a private ledger of the men who died around him. A young nurse notices. He starts copying it into a notebook at his kitchen table, without permission and without a single person asking him to, and he does not stop for more than forty years. Dear Wall is the story of both men, and of what it costs to be the one who reads.
Who it is for
Intended Audience
For readers of Sebastian Barry and Sebastian Faulks, and for anyone drawn to outsider art, the history of psychiatry, or a true story told slowly. If you have ever wondered what a file leaves out about a person, this novel is written for you.
Book details
Details list
Paperback, Kindle and hardcover editions, published September 2026. Paperback ISBN 979-8-2408-4782-0. Ebook ISBN 979-8-2408- 4783-7. 206 pages, 6 by 9 inches. Literary and historical fiction. Contains an author’s note separating the documented record from the invented material.
Content note
Note
A note for readers: the novel is set largely inside psychiatric institutions between 1948 and 1978 and deals with confinement, outdated treatment and the deaths of patients. It is written without graphic detail.
