El ganador del Premio Strega conmueve con una historia que ha impactado a la crítica y los lectores y ha sido finalista del National Book Award

«Starnone resalta lo extraño en lo cotidiano transmitiendo nuevas emociones en situaciones universales.» - Jesús Trueba, librería La Buena Vida

Visualiza un duelo. Dos figuras se enfrentan, sangre de la misma sangre. Uno tiene más de setenta años y es un afamado ilustrador que lleva tiempo viviendo completamente solo. El otro, más bajito, es su nieto: un niño revoltoso de cuatro años con un vocabulario vasto y precoz. Apenas se han visto un par de veces, pero ahora el abuelo va a tenerlo a su cuidado tres días enteros. Los padres han ido a un congreso, o quizá en realidad necesitaban tiempo para averiguar si su matrimonio ha llegado a un callejón sin salida. Cuatro paredes y un balcón serán los límites entre esta historia, la de un abuelo cansado y distraído y un pequeño sargento que lo pone a prueba, y otra historia, en sordina: la de un matrimonio en crisis y un gran amor que amenaza con resquebrajarse.

Starnone vuelve a brillar, como en su inolvidable Ataduras, haciendo saltar por los aires las relaciones familiares.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

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 consider to be one of Italy's greatest living writers.