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Published Mar 2018
176 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Sharp, succinct storytelling and breathtaking prose combine in this new novel by the author of Ties, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and a Kirkus Reviews and Sunday Times Best Book of the Year.
Trick is a stylish drama about ambition, family, and old-age that goes beyond the ordinary and predictable. Imagine a duel between two men. One, Daniele Mallarico, is a successful illustrator who, in the twilight of his years, feels that his reputation and his artistic prowess are fading. The other, Mario, is Daniele's four-year-old grandson. Daniele has been living in a cold northern city for years, in virtual solitude, focusing obsessively on his work, when his daughter asks if he would come to Naples for a few days and babysit Mario while she and her husband attend a conference. Shut inside his childhood home--an apartment in the center of Naples that is filled with the ghosts of Mallarico's past--grandfather and grandson match wits as Daniele heads toward a reckoning with his own ambitions and life choices.
Outside the apartment pulses Naples, a wily, violent, and passionate city whose influence can never be shaken.
Trick is a gripping, brilliantly devised drama, "an extremely playful literary composition," as Jhumpa Lahiri describes it in her introduction, by the Strega Prize-winning novelist whom many coinsider to be one of Italy's greatest living writers.
"Starred Review. [A] new book from Starnone is an event to celebrate." - Kirkus Reviews
"Astute and emotionally precise [...] This remarkably layered work encourages rereading to unearth subtle and new interpretations." - Publishers Weekly
"[P]oignant and achingly observed..." - Entertainment Weekly
"[E]ngrossing [...] Starnone packs a huge amount into a small compass..." - The Sunday Times (UK)
"Family ties and family dramas are at the core of this story, but both are written about with such stylistic elegance that readers will be astonished. Once again, Starnone gets it just right. Trick is a must-read!" - Huffington Post (Italy)
"In Trick, the sophisticated pleasures of meta-fiction live happily together with the elementary pleasures of a story well told, one full of suspense and surprise." - Internazionale (Italy)
"A maestro translated by a maestra. What more could anyone want?" - Jeffrey Eugenides
This information about Trick was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Domenico Starnone was born in Naples and lives in Rome. He is the author of thirteen works of fiction, including First Execution, Via Gemito, winner of Italy's most prestigious literary prize, the Strega, and Ties, a New York Times Editors pick.
Jhumpa Lahiri is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Interpreter of Maladies. Her books include The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, The Lowland, and, most recently, In Other Words, an exploration of language and identity.
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