Trick by Domenico Starnone

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.

REVIEWS

"Their relationship, perfectly captured by Starnone's precise writing, gives the novel a rich foundation to allow for a juxtaposition of the old and the new, the rigid and the silly, while also providing readers with moments of pure comic relief, marked by the characters' signature, witty stichomythia."-Vox

"Short and emotionally astute, a shrewd mix of humor and dread that keeps you reading."-The Chicago Tribune

"Trick, it turns out, is a kind of ghost story in conversation with James's The Jolly Corner."-The Globe & Mail

PRODUCT DETAILS
Paperback
Publisher: Europa Editions
ISBN:  978-1609454449
Pages: 176