★ A novel about growing up, written through the lens of math—for anyone who has ever felt "parallel" to the people around them.
★ When math meets life: parallel lines can also come close
From the very title, this book uses math as a way to explore deeper questions. Parallel lines never meet—except, in theory, at infinity. Growing up, aren't we all trying to find our own path while walking alongside others? This is a story for anyone who's ever felt like they're running parallel to the world.
★ A scientist's pen, telling a very human story
Written by Tommaso Castellani, a former theoretical physicist, this novel brings together the precision of science and the tenderness of human emotion. It’s a story about identity, family, and friendship—where math and the heart quietly meet.
★ Growing up isn’t about finding answers—it’s about learning to live with the questions
This is the story of Luca, a boy growing up on the outskirts of Rome, who spends his life asking: Who am I? How do I deserve to be loved? The answers never come easy. But maybe that’s the point. True growth begins where the questions never stop.

A coming-of-age novel that weaves the protagonists' experiences with elements of science, to tell the story of the search for identity and the courage to face the questions that define who we are.

Following the success of his trilogy for young readers, Tommaso Castellani returns to his cherished themes of childhood and adolescence in a novel aimed at an adult audience. In his highly personal style, always with an eye on the world of mathematics and science—starting with the title itself—he tells us a story about the search for identity.

Luca and his friends grow up in the suburbs of Rome, in a time without social media, but not without glances, expectations, and trials to overcome. Gradually, the decisive questions begin to emerge: how do you escape the destiny that others seem to have written for you? How much of yourself are you willing to lose in order to be loved?

Over the years, their bonds transform, they drift apart, and they find each other again. When university seems to open the doors to a brilliant scientific career for him, Luca faces the moment he has always postponed: the encounter with himself. A crisis that will force him to look where he had never dared.

With an original intertwining of timelines and narrative styles, the story incorporates the epistolary exchanges between the now-adult protagonist and the readers of the magazine he writes for: different voices reflecting the same doubts, the same need for meaning. And with an eye to science, they recount from another perspective the transition from the illusion of absolute certainties to the acceptance of limits, showing that maturity does not mean finding answers, but learning to live with the right questions.

Tommaso Castellani
After earning a PhD in theoretical physics, Tommaso Castellani dedicated himself to science education and communication. Today he teaches mathematics in a middle school in Rome and is an editor for the magazine Sapere. For Dedalo he has written Equilibrium and the volumes of the trilogy Professor Z and Infinity, Professor Z and the Secret of the Triangle, and The Mysteries of the Hypercube.