Trick
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER LONGLISTED AND WINNER OF THE STREGA PRIZE THE HOUSE ON VIA GEMITO
“Starnone uses languages the way a great painter works with colour, conjuring the illusion of three dimensions from a blank flat surface.”—Jhumpa Lahiri
“Compelling… One of Italy’s most accomplished novelists.”—The Guardian
"Trick is a chillingly weird chamber piece - a very tricksy treat.”—The Times
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 centre 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.