Hidden Faith
04/2023
Oblivion, awakening, the love of a woman and a little girl with a red hairpin, won’t be enough for the protagonist to know who he really is.
He will have to keep searching, and return to that small town to find his way.
Perhaps we never stop long enough to look inside ourselves, to understand who we truly are, and a lifetime isn’t enough, even if sometimes a little, very little, almost nothing, can be enough:
A snowfall and a warm spring sun.
Available at:
- Cartolibreria “Punto e Virgola” Via della Repubblica, 27 – 02043 Contigliano
- Bazar Monte Terminillo – Piazzale Pian de Valli, 26 – 02100 Pian De’ Valli RI
- Cartolibreria La Centrale – Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, 8 – 02100 Rieti
Write a review:
Preface
Preface by: Father Mariano Pappalardo
The words of this story flow swiftly before your eyes, but they don’t slip away. Slowly they descend and settle deep into the bottom of your heart where they take root and grow. Even if the reader’s mind is gripped by a compelling narrative full of twists and turns, those seeds in the heart force us to stop with an enraptured gaze to scrutinize what is closest in everyone’s intimacy. Everything is stored there, settles and waits for an enchanted word like a kiss to awaken emotions, experiences, memories, thoughts, arguments, choices and all that is believed past, returns to pulsate with a renewed, unexpected, and vibrant presence.
They are cordial buds, the perfume of which has the flavour and fragrance of yesteryear.
They have a scent, fragrance and taste like freshly baked bread, which is so beguiling and hard to resist. It is fresh, good bread which nourishes and delights even when eaten on its own.
It is simple and essential nourishment, but it nevertheless stimulates the tastebuds, and one can keep chewing morsels for such a long time. It’s a flavour that lasts, that accompanies you and complements you.
“Hidden Faith” is a good friend, who tells you about yourself while recounting about himself; who delicately cautions while laying bare and revealing our frailties; who patches up your wounds while trying to treat his own; who gives the reader the meaning of his or her own existence, while looking for his own.
His existence is a sense of interwoven relationships.
Only relationships provide and give meaning to life. Only in relationships can each one of us find oneself. Only relationships make it possible to reconstruct the past and offer an unforeseen future.
Interweaving relationships intricately intertwining over time; the past projects to the future but stays consciously and wisely in the present. Only those who live in the present, with calm and infinite patience; only those who know how to get fully involved albeit by taking chances, will be able to break out of the bubble of a forgetful, imprisoning and yoked existence.
Relationships are the interweaving of ties that draw near but don’t tether, that seduce without suffocating, that “steal” the soul, but don’t kidnap it, that say love, only when they are able to set it free. A lesson in life for whoever were to think they were able to own others using overbearing violence or subtle emotional blackmail.
Felice Nucci’s book is a love story: love for life, for nature, the lake, the cat, the flowers, the snow, love of women, children, friends, music, a little church, a cassock and an old Mini.
Love gets gracious and caring respect, it invades the senses, it expresses itself through the eyes with a prudish and unladen gaze; it manifests itself in intangible and discreet touch; in warm, prolonged and silent hugs; it matches the rhythm of the heart and beats sometimes calmly and reassuringly, while at other times frenetically and ominously.
The story and the characters are extraordinary in their ordinariness. The narrative is a simple and very human story, in places heart-rending; it is the eulogy of a daily life that is so thrilling. Everything speaks, everything contains a word. There is a story that has made its nest in every single object, in everything that is alive and in what already seems dead.
The author leads his readers and succeeds with mastery, to make those words resonate and give them a voice; first stopping to listen to them and then making them vibrate in the ear and in the heart of anyone wanting to listen.
What Felice Nucci expresses in his novel is a “naive” and girlish human nature, which for this very reason reaches full adult sophistication and maturity. The world and history, men and their stories are beheld with a pure gaze and infinite respect.
You breathe a clear air of freedom between the lines of the novel. In it, everyone in the large white spaces left by the author, can write one’s own story and free one’s heart and rediscover one’s soul.
The protagonist’s life is hectic but lived with the slow pace of a fisherman and moves between his own and others’ tragedies with the stealthy step of a silent and shrewd cat.
While searching for himself, he never turns on himself. His capacity to welcome and make room for others in his inner world, accompanying them without leaving footprints even in the snow and without ever interfering, will lead him to bring to light, almost giving birth to himself and giving the best of himself.
More than reading the story, one can listen to it with infinite tenderness.
It is a whispered narrative, even if every event brings with it the inevitable bitterness of life. Some events are hard, but everything is lived with the dreamy mood of the “seller of dreams”, or more simply with the joyful heart of someone who does not give in to reality, but neither dreams, nor sings, nor points to another different or better one, and for this we buy in.
It is heart-warming read.
It is a life-giving read.
Don Mariano
Hidden Faith
I dedicate to Matilde and Achille Nucci
One day who knows if we will ever write a book together, maybe there won’t be time and then you will do it without me, or maybe someone else will write it for us, but know that it would have been nice, a bit like making music together classical, jazz, or rock but we would have made it and it would have been good music…
Roberta Leomporra
Intellectual and ethical honesty would require me to write two different post-reading impressions. This book is a familiar walk, hand in hand, towards new possibilities.
Unorthodox chance to react to a reality that often imposes itself so far away from what we would have desired; deserved also. There is the whole spectrum of the unresolved aspects of your character: music, the need to drive yourself to your limits. The desire for harmony, to become a grandfather, to be of service.
The multitude of aspirations in which your book is imbued and which you think it has not expressed, connote the identity of each of the actions where you feel.
The power underlying the entire narrative defines Fred to an almost redeeming extent, as a person able to get the best from anyone in the world who crosses his hectic path.
You, my dear Felice, are like that.
Your book has restored in me hope to enable me to find any precious glimpse of an instant to devote to reading.
Forever my beloved mentor.
Thank you.
Luca Scopigno
Felice Nucci once again asked me to help him re-read his new novel (so clearly he trusts me, and I thank him for that).
I accepted and found myself face to face with yet another surprising chapter of what I want to define as the “Trilogy of Optimism”.
Having reached his third work, Felice has accustomed us to get excited and often moved through tough stories but with endings which give hope and trust in one another and in life.
The stories that he envisions are inspired by real events and to which he adds authentic pictures of nature and humanity worthy of the consummate novelist.
Felice chooses the timing of his story and measures it out, suspending and recapturing it, like a great writer and once again he gives us an extraordinary story characterized by hope and optimism, despite life’s problems which the author does not shy away from or underestimate.
Thank you, Felice, and even if you keep repeating that this will be your last book, we are all waiting for your next work to cry again while, with a lighter and more tender frame of mind, smiling serenely.
Special thanks
- Father Mariano Pappalardo, for having kindly accepted to read the draft of this book, during one of his holidays and coincidentally, right on the shore of a lake, for having lovingly encouraged me and for having written the preface.
- Luca Scopigno, who once again with patience and competence corrected the drafts of this new book, with the many errors of my hasty writing. Thank you for supporting me and comparing me to an important author, who out of modesty I will not mention.
- Roberta Leomporra(Robertina) who has always supported me and who was able to convince me to publish my first book.
- Paula McDermott and Colin Cunningham, for the English translation, re-reading and corrections.
- My photographer friend Giuseppe Carciuoffolo, for giving me the cover photo as a gift.
All the people I meet in my life, with whom I stop to talk and who inspire my characters. - The grey cat, who had been abandoned in a parking lot. We found him under a car: he was crying, scared and extremely thin. We took him home, nursed him back to strength, and named him Mio. As I was writing, he would often jump onto my knees and look at me, and I would look at him. So, he became Flipper.
- My wife Franca, for her loving understanding while I was writing, at night or early in the morning, and for her coffees and my children Silvia, Massimo and his partner Serena, and the latest great love who has just arrived: my granddaughter Matilde, who gives joy to my life and my writing.
- All those who encourage me to carry on writing.
- You, the reader, for reading my stories.
- Among the friends and family who have commented on the drafts of the book are: Father Mariano Pappalardo, Luca Scopigno, Roberta Leomporra, Alessandra Lancia, Cristina Racchella, Franca Rinaldi and Silvia Nucci.
- In the acknowledgments someone is inevitably always forgotten, but understand that whoever is missed from this list, is not missed from my heart.
They wrote…
Ray (U.S.A.)
RAY (U.S.A.): Reborn into a life he cannot remember, Fred explores who he was, who he is, and who he will become. Memories of love, life and friendship support him as his heart takes us on a trip of discovery, a magical remembrance of things past and the promise of what is to come. In this novel, Felice Nucci wraps you in the beautiful world of the Italian countryside where simple pleasures leave space to explore who you are. Where misty memories bubble up from the lake, fall gently with the snow and are carried in the hearts of children. Go on this adventure with Fred and discover how to become a Priest from Nothing.
Rinato in una vita che non riesce a ricordare, Fred esplora chi era, chi è, e chi diventerà. I ricordi dell’amore, della vita, e dell’amicizia lo sostengono mentre il suo cuore ci accompagna in un viaggio di scoperta, un magico ricordo delle cose passate e la promessa di ciò che verrà. In questo romanzo, Felice Nucci ti avvolge nel bellissimo mondo della campagna italiana dove i piaceri semplici lasciano spazio per esplorare chi sei. Dove i ricordi nebbiosi sgorgano dal lago, cadono dolcemente con la neve, e vengono trasportati nel cuore dei bambini. Parti per questa avventura con Fred e scopri come diventare un prete da niente.
Monica (U.S.A.)
The chapter with the children in church brought back some cherished and unexpected memories: me kneeling and prayingbefore the statue of the Madonna, who is all lit up by by the votive lights. I liked meeting the small children in “Un Prete da niente”, they seemed to bring a lightness to Fred’s thoughts. I was very moved by the theme: that what was once hidden in the dark can be found and illuminated, if we allow it. And If we are mindful when we are with children, like Fred was, we will find the light and lightness within ourselves.
Il capitolo con I bambini in chiesa mi ha riportato alla mente molti ricordi cari e inaspettati: inginocchiato e pregante davanti alla statua della Madonna che è circondata da luci votive. Mi è piaciuto incontrare I bambini in “Un Prete da niente”: sembrano portare leggerezza nei pensieri di Fred. Sono stata commossa dal tema: ciò che era nascosto nell’ oscurità, può essere trovato e illuminato, se lo permettiamo. E se siamo consapevoli quando siamo con I bambini, come se Fred , possiamo trovare quella luce e quella leggerezza dentro di noi.
Barbara (U.S.A.)
Your books always make me wonder what will happen. In all your stories there is always something that connects me to my Italian family life. In this book, my family always had the parish priests for dinner and I liked observing them.
I tuoi libri mi fanno sempre chiedere cosa succederà. In tutti i tuoi racconti c’è sempre qualcosa che mi collega alla mia vita familiare italiana. Per esempio, la mia famiglia aveva sempre i parroci a cena e mi piaceva osservarli.
Michele (U.S.A.)
Rich with symbolism, Un Prete Da Niente reminds us that love finds a way to blossom even in the most unlikely and darkest spaces.
Ricco di simbolismo, Un Prete Da Niente ci ricorda che l’amore trova sempre il modo di sbocciare anche nei luoghi piú improbabili e bui.
Anat (U.S.A.)
The book is written in a very delicate and sensitive description of the persons thoughts and feelings which creates much empathy.
Il libro descrive in modo molto delicato e sensibile i pensieri e i sentimenti delle persone e crea molta empatia per me.