The irresistible comic rise of Chiara Moscardelli, writer by the will of fate

This is a story of revolving doors, the sliding doors which opened up at some point along the way Clare Moscardelli – writer, literary press office and comic talent with many followers on social media and on TV (as soon as she sets foot there), all not necessarily in this order. Starting from the end, Chiara is the one who for brevity – after the success of the first autobiographical book “I wanted to be a dead cat” (ed. Einaudi Stile libero), in 2011, which was followed by other volumes of fiction and otherwise, including the sequel “I wanted to be a widow” – has been called “the Italian Bridget Jones”. But the comparison does not make the whole idea.

Moscardelli, known as Mosca, is for example the one who in 2020, during an episode of “Come to me”, on Rai 1, in the living room of Caterina Balivo (who had very strongly wanted her as a shoulder for the days of Sanremo after an interview in which, says who was there, “even the chairs in the studio laughed”), she was capable of go down a staircase like a fake valleyafter four hours of “Cinderella grew up without a prince” hair and make-up, imitating real models with surreal effects, including the choreography with adoring boys like Madonna in the old “Material girl” video. But she is also the one who, when she launches out of nowhere, during interviews, withering jokes about her life as an almost fifty-year-old “spinster”, makes all the others appear out of role, the almost fifty-year-old non-singers. Since that day on the fake Sanremo staircase, however, other TV appearances have followed, including the collaboration with Adriana Volpe on “Every morning” on TV8. For his books, on the other hand, in a game of theater in the literary theatre, declarations of esteem arrive periodically from well-known writers (among others, Andrea Vitali, Marco Missiroli, Claudio Magris, even if the first of Moscardelli’s known admirers was late Giorgio Faletti, king maker at the beginning). Flash forward: the writer on Sunday 26 March will appear on Italia1 at “Le iene”as a sentimental expert, and it seems that her yellow saga, the one starring the insecure criminologist Teresa Papavero, heroine of the small town of Strangolagalli, which actually exists near Frosinone, where Moscardelli, at each presentation, is welcomed as was the mayor, has attracted the attention of some TV series producer, just as the third volume, due out in September for Giunti, is proceeding towards its conclusion.

Starting from the beginning of the story, Moscardelli, already at the age of twenty, tells those who know her, she proved to have the so-called comic tempos – those that on TV and radio make her precious for authors looking for guests. And therefore, full of involuntary irony, at the age of twenty-six, in Rome, after a degree in Literature, she entered the world of work with the hope of being a neophyte, finding a well-paid job at Christie’s auction house. The fact is that her life was still expensive, the first apartment alone proved unmanageable, her boyfriend remained untraceable and the ghost of the “permanent job” haunted her, in the form of the question “I’ve found this, will I keep it? ”. And in short, the glittering life of the New Yorkers of “Sex and the city” seemed far away, starting from the cost of the dietician, necessary for a diet that could be called such, and the nascent aperi-sushi, imported from Milan where Moscardelli would later be went to live. “Is it possible that on the threshold of thirty I am reduced to the verge of a future life as an obese spinster?”, she asked herself as an employee in the auction house, eating only pizza, rice and pasta to save money, and glamorous, always due to lack of funds (instead possessed by more worldly friends), watching and watching “Elisa di Rivombrosa” on vhs, in a house with no heating.

A massive dose of irony was needed, the one that Moscardelli experienced during evenings with desperate friends for some toxic and tormented love, when, as soon as she opened her mouth, they ended up laughing, despite having gathered there to cry. In the meantime, Moscardelli, she was trying to find a way to supplement her salary, which is why she had sent her curriculum vitae to about twenty publishing houses, with the intention of offering herself as a proofreader. And it is here that she is faced with the first sliding door: they call her for an interview at Fanucci’s, where, however, they find her more suitable for the role of press office (“Resign, here’s a place for you”, more or less sounded the phrase of the manager). Said and done: the decision takes Moscardelli towards the second and most important sliding door, especially for one who did not have the conscious dream of being a writer in her drawer.

The turning point matures almost by chance in the years in which, thirty-forty years old, the girl now a woman is immersed in festivals, parties, dinners, press conferences and daring journeys with or without the authors to accompany. Journeys where some catastrophe always happened, such as the time when, during a sort of belated interrail for Europe, at the height of Belgium, Moscardelli, future author of detective stories, found with great horror a real corpse in the toilet of the train, or the one in which, in Mexico, due to a Zapatista rally, he almost met Subcomandante Marcos. And in short, there was so much vis comedy profuse in oral stories about her work, love and tourist misadventures, that the editorial director of the publishing house where she was employed, at a certain point, comes to suggest that she write a diary so as not to lose her memories. Thus was born the self-therapeutic text that will serve as a draft for the best-seller “I wanted to be a dead cat”, reprinted six years ago in a paperback edition. From publishing house to publishing house, the draft, in 2011, travels to Einaudi, where, given the enthusiastic comments of internal readers, it is decided to publish it, after devising a narrative frame. Success, thanks to word of mouth, forced Moscardelli to decide to continue: other books and the sequel “I wanted to be a widow”, born from the observation that it is one thing, after forty, to say that one is single, it is one thing to say that the poor spouse died in dramatic circumstances (“but how, so young? is the comment in front of such a declaration”, explained Moscardelli during the presentations). Continuing to write, however, did not mean giving up his press office work (reason: the mortgage on the small house in Milan paid for in gold).

Third sliding door: the effective fifty years. How do I live them? asked the writer, after having had a “wedding with herself” party right at the end of the decade, in 2022, complete with a wedding dress, wedding cake and many invited friends, finally deciding to get seventeen tattoos, documented from photos, and to give up the coveted permanent position, her Linus blanket since the early 2000s, for a type of VAT-registered contract, an agile formula that allows her to also take care of books and travel, perhaps more messed up than those of her youth , see the very cloudy trek to the island of Réunion. Not to mention the human error, like the one committed a few years ago, well documented on social media to the delight of lovers of the “clumsy traveler” genre: the writer thought she had bought a flight to Singapore on December 25, a smart date to save money, and however, once she arrived at check-in, she realized that she had bought a flight for the past 25 November, a circumstance that had forced her to make up for it with a very expensive immediate ticket for the Christmas flight, on pain of losing all the others connections in far South-East Asia, where the sparring partner, the best friend Luca, based in Singapore, had already arranged all the stops (are the two ready for “Beijing Express”? Who knows, the fact is that they have various trips full of hilarious unexpected events).

Compared to the even daring life of its heroines – in addition to Teresa Papavero, there is Agata Trambusti of “Volevo solo fare a Letto Early” (ed.Giunti), obsessive, hypochondriac and avid fan of Brazilian telenovelas – Chiara Moscardelli’s existence is only formally calmer. She didn’t become a dead cat, but during the pandemic she had a cat, named Rhett, named after the beauty of “Gone with the Wind”, and obviously became the protagonist of a book in which the quadruped, endowed with speech, dispenses the cynical maxims from “alpha male”, the one not revealed in the author’s real life. Too bad that the talking cat, says Moscardelli, certainly has more sense of humor than any alpha or beta male.

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• Marianna Rizzini

• Marianna Rizzini was born and raised in Rome, between the Visconti high school and the La Sapienza University, perhaps absorbing the tics of both environments, but more of the Visconti than of the Sapienza. Luckily they sent it to Milan in time, even if she then went back. He has been working at Il Foglio since the early years of the Millennium and mostly writes portraits of political figures or articles on left-wing disasters, Five Stars and web populists, but the page you don’t expect can happen (strange individuals, perfect strangers, improbable stories, robots , movies, cartoons). She was born into a crazy family, but in hindsight not even that much. She lives in Trastevere, she is Tea’s mother, she likes to go out, she is not an ace chef.