Trick
Domenico Starnone, Jhumpa Lahiri (translation)Shortlisted for the 2018 National Book Awards
Sharp, succinct storytelling & breathtaking prose combine in this new novel by the author of the New York Times editor’s pick, Ties.
Imagine a duel. A face-off between a man & a boy.
The same blood runs through their veins. One, Daniele Mallarico, is a successful illustrator at the peak of his career. The other, Mario, is his four-year-old grandson who has barely learned to talk but has a few tricks up his loose-fitting sleeves all the same. The older combatant has lived for years in almost complete solitude. The younger one has been dumped with a grandfather he barely knows for 72 hours.
Starnone's sharp novella unfolds within the four walls (and a balcony!) of the apartment where the grandfather grew up, now the home of his daughter & her family, where the rage of an aging man meets optimism incarnate in the shape of a four-year-old child. Lurking, ever present in the conflict, is the memory of Naples, a wily, violent, & passionate city where the old man spent his youth & whose influence is not easily shaken.
Trick is a gripping, wry, brilliantly devised drama, “an extremely playful literary composition,” as Jhumpa Lahiri describes it in her introduction, about aging, family, art, & reconciling with one’s past.
Domenico Starnone is an Italian writer, screenwriter & journalist. He was born in Naples & lives in Rome. He is the author of thirteen works of fiction, including First Execution (Europa, 2009), Via Gemito, winner of Italy's most prestigious literary prize, the Strega.