The rebellious daughter of a bourgeois and racist family in the United States, Grace discovered dance and jazz at an early age. To escape her parents, she marries a rugby player at a very young age and has her first child. But the marriage is short-lived and her parents take the child away from her. Dance and the pain of loss drive her further away, to New York. It is the 1960s and the city is in an experimental fever; art, dance, theatre, literature intertwine everywhere. Grace is at the centre of the artistic revolution of those years. She participated with creativity and talent in the postmodern dance movement. But drugs, prejudices, misunderstandings and the fatigue of being both an artist and a mother torment Grace’s existence, as she continues over the years to feel unfit, unsuitable. The obstacles are many, the goodbyes too but Grace has the tenacity to resist, not betraying her own identity and always being open to discovery. Chiara Mezzalama, between the avenues of New York swept by the frost and the alleys of Rome where the heat clings to the skin, tells us about an uncompromising woman who lives intensely for her art, and does so with empathy and inventiveness going to the heart of what it means to dance to be oneself.
“When I danced I felt free, I no longer cared about being unfit: it was me, Grace. Then I would leave the room and the world would attack me”.
Chiara Mezzalama, was born in Rome in 1972 and lives in Paris. Writer, translator and psychotherapist. Among her novels, Avrò cura di te (2009) and Il Giardino persiano (2015). In September 2025 her first French written novel will be published by Les Presse de la Cité.
Pub date: April 2025
Length: pp. 272
TGR Piemonte
minuto 27:11
Petrarca
Rai radio 3 - Fahrenheit
Chiara Mezzalama
Il libro del giorno
Donna moderna
Eleonora Lorusso
In estate metti la giusta distanza dagli altri e pensa a te
Leggendaria
Nadia Tarantini
Una vita a grandi passi
Mangialibri
Federica Ferrazza
L’inadatta – Chiara Mezzalama
Rai Italia - Casa Italia
Sabina Stilo
Chiara Mezzalama da A spasso con i libri
Il venerdì - La Repubblica
Alberto Riva
Ode alla danza e a una vita coraggiosa
Rai Cultura
Chiara Mezzalama
Chiara Mezzalama, L'inadatta
Mangialibri
Lucia Ravera e Federica Ferrazza
Intervista a Chiara Mezzalama
Solo Libri
Elisabetta Bolondi
'L'inadatta' di Chiara Mezzalama
La Fedeltà
Fiorenza Barbero
'L'inadatta' il nuovo romanzo di Chiara Mezzalama
Il manifesto
Farian Sabahi
Con la danza verso la libertà: "L'inadatta"
Domani
Chiara Mezzalama
Scrivere la vita di un'altra. A chi appartiene una storia?
Internazionale
Chiara Mezzalama, 'L'inadatta'
Satisfiction
Carlo Tortarolo
Chiara Mezzalama anteprima. L’inadatta
Book Blister
Chiara Beretta Mazzotta
L’inadatta – Chiara Mezzalama
Pulp Libri
L’inadatta di Chiara Mezzalama
Stream Yard
Roberto Bertoni
Chiara Mezzalama, 30 giugno
Leggere Tutti
Redazione
'L’inadatta' di Chiara Mezzalama letto da Viola Graziosi
Vanity Fair
Laura Pezzino
I 40 libri da leggere in vacanza secondo Vanity Fair