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Trick Kindle Edition
In Tricks, Domenico Starnone presents an unusual duel between two formidable minds. One is Daniele Mallarico, a once-successful illustrator who feels his artistic prowess fading. The other is Mario, Daniele’s four-year-old grandson. Daniele is living in virtual solitude in Milan when his daughter asks him to come to Naples to babysit Mario for a few days.
Shut inside his childhood home―an apartment in the center of Naples that is filled with memoires of Daniele’s past―grandfather and grandson match wits as Daniele heads toward a reckoning with his own ambitions and life choices. Meanwhile, Naples pulses outside, a wily, passionate city whose influence can never be shaken.
As translator Jhumpa Lahiri says in her introduction, Trick is “an extremely playful literary composition” by the Strega Prize–winning novelist whom many consider to be one of Italy’s greatest living writers.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherEuropa Editions
- Publication dateMarch 6, 2018
- File size4879 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Praise for Trick
"The real meat of this story is an old man's breakfasts and bath times with a wired-up four-year-old, his wrestling for the remote, desperately trying to find some space for himself and his work. Starnone, one of Italy's most accomplished novelists, knows the territory and delivers it wonderfully."--Tim Parks, The Guardian
"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
"Domenico Starnone has written an emotionally complex, layered story whose brevity serves to amplify profound themes of self-identity, marriage, aging, death and the daunting sacrifices of the creative life."--Shelf Awareness (Starred Review)
"A superb, sometimes unsettling intergenerational portrait hitting on basic truths."--Library Journal (Starred Review)
"[A] new book from Starnone is an event to celebrate."--Kirkus (Starred Review)
"A maestro translated by a maestra. What more could anyone want?"--Jeffrey Eugenides
"I inhaled Trick, ran to Prairie Lights to get Ties, and inhaled that one too. Trick is fantastic--savage and funny and profound. A little masterpiece."--Garth Greenwell
"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
"A sharp observation of two unlikely rivals matching wits and a trenchant analysis of aging, family and art, this deliciously addictive novel is a treat to read."--BookRiot
"Domenico Starnone's new novel Trick has all the coherence and intensity of a classic two-hand play. [...] Narrated in the grandfather's beleaguered, fractious voice, the book seems to unfold right before you--the voice so lucid and urgent all the emotional torque of what surges beneath the old man's interactions with his grandson--family secrets, a feeling of mortality buffeting up--assault the present, like they do when you're no longer young."--John Freeman, Literary Hub
"[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)
"Starnone expertly plucks some of the short story's essence, twisting and molding his own work into a marvel of metafiction that feels fresh and surprising."--The Washington Post
"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 Praise for Domenico Starnone's Ties
"Ties is...the leanest, most understated and emotionally powerful novel by Domenico Starnone."
--Rachel Donadio, The New York Times
"Ties is puzzle-like, architectural, a novel ingeniously constructed."
--The New Yorker
"Ties is a masterful study of passing time."
--National Post (Canada)
"[Ties] is as vivid and devastating as anything you will read this year. A slim, stunning meditation on marriage, fidelity, honesty, and truth."
--Kirkus Reviews(Starred Review)
"Scalding and incisive."
--Library Journal (Starred Review)
"An expertly crafted short novel that is charmingly intimate, disarmingly chatty and laced with some walloping surprises."
--Shelf Awareness
"Ingeniously constructed."
--Financial Times
"Absolutely gripping from start to finish... a really stunning book."
--Victoria Hislop, author ofCartes Postales from Greece
"Each detail resonates, from the name of the family cat to the idiosyncratic way in which Aldo ties his shoes to his cherished Polaroids. Distinguished by its distinctive characters and clarity of tone, Ties is a gem."
--Jane Ciabattari, BBC
"A complex and devastating dissection of a relationship, superbly teased apart and considered from all possible viewpoints."
--The Times
"A tight tale of domestic carnage."
--The Times Literary Supplement
"The story glints and cuts like smashed crystal."
--Anthony Cummins, The Guardian
"A fine piece of story-telling... there is a feel of legerdemain to it--capturing and conveying a great deal in a relatively small space."
--M.A. Orthofer, The Complete Review
"Brief, brilliant and unnerving."
--Margot Livesey, author of Mercury
"A cleverly crafted psychological thriller, this slim, intimate novel deftly undoes contemporary gender constructions as well as timeless notions of truth, fidelity, and sacrifice."
--Jennifer Tseng, author of Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness
"A superlative novel, Ties offers an x-ray image both of love that is love in name only and of destruction, specifically a home torn apart by something that at first seems to be a tornado but turns out to be Starnone's brilliant writing."
--Il Giornale
"Ties is a masterfully crafted synthesis of Starnone's storytelling technique and prose style."
--Christian Raimo, Internazionale
"Ties is not simply a novel about a couple in crisis, but a work of literature where staged scenes featuring one's unrealized self are propped up by the indestructible scaffolding of marriage."
--Daniela Brogi, Le Parole e le Cose
About the Author
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.
Will Damron has won several Earphones Awards and been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. He has had acting roles off-Broadway and on stage and screen throughout the country.
Product details
- ASIN : B0788ZQNJ3
- Publisher : Europa Editions (March 6, 2018)
- Publication date : March 6, 2018
- Language : English
- File size : 4879 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 206 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #774,734 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,315 in Psychological Literary Fiction
- #5,656 in Saga Fiction
- #6,099 in Contemporary Literary Fiction
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The grandfather has an obsession with his body; with its weakness, deterioration, and sluggishness after a minor surgical procedure. He reminisces about his youth. He does not like the dark. The grandson is a veritable bundle of energy, never static, always in motion. He is in his youth. He is not afraid of the dark.
The novel is from the grandfather’s point of view. Mario is a precocious child – and yet innocent, playful, and, above all, unbearable. Daniele is protective and an anxious caregiver – and yet also mean and aggressive. And then Mario plays a trick on his grandfather.
This is a battle of wits, a battle of minds, of two males at both ends of the age spectrum, at loggerheads with each other. It is a clever, well-paced novel with succint real-life dialogue, that is both enjoyable and thought-provoking. I loved it.
Starnone's "Ties" was among my favorite books of 2017, so I was looking forward to the release of Jhumpa Lahiri's translation of "Trick"; however, this turned out to be starkly different both in its quality and ability to engage the reader. At times, I contemplated putting it down and revisiting it at a later date, but I continued to hope it might "turn a corner," but with the exception of a few enjoyable segments, it was an arduous journey from beginning to end. I was particularly disappointed, because this story has great potential and hidden underneath this novel's verbosity is a thread that could be a real gem: A telling of a relationship between a grandfather and his grandson, but also an exploration of one man's identity as he reflects on the life he has lived. Overall, I was disappointed—yet, I do find myself contemplating the fascinating back and forth that ensued between the grandfather and his grandson, Mario. There are lessons and nuggets of beauty in this novel, but you'll need to put in more effort than prospectors searching for gold during the California Gold Rush.
Starnone also explores the child's mental terrain through Daniele's eyes. Every action creates a reaction. And the interactions between adult and child are honest and feel realistic, nothing sugary or forced though there is constant accommodation. Starnone can juggle a scene in the present while infusing the past, Daniele's own fears and reflections, and still keep all the balls in the air without creating a chaotic mess. I also credit Lahiri's smooth and intuitive translation for that.
I like the sketches and notes in the appendix but I haven't figured out why, yet.
who like it too..Our bookclub loved it..Well written and interesting take on the characters..
Top reviews from other countries
Daniele is an aging illustrator, attempting to put together a series of pictures for a deluxe version of Henry James's short story 'The Jolly Corner'; but he is interrupted in his work by a summons from his daughter, Betta. She needs Daniele to look after four-year-old Mario while she and her jealous husband are away at a conference. The story explores the few days that Daniele and his grandson share.
This book could have gone so wrong, in many ways - it could have split the narrative between Daniele and Mario, for instance, or it could have had both Daniele and Mario come out unnaturally enriched by the experience of their time together. But this is real literature, and if anything is learned, knowledge comes free of cliche.
'Trick' is translated by Jhumpa Lahiri, who has done an admirable job of keeping the prose tight yet also feather light. For a story that contains so many nods towards Henry James it is remarkably readable (I have yet to read a James novel to its conclusion, but 'Trick' took me two days in an otherwise busy schedule).
I must makes special mention of Asymptote, a literary journal that specialises in works in translation; without them I would never have come across this magnificent book, and for that I am inordinately thankful.
No: the novel has a lucidity that is miles away from James’ convoluted prose, just occasionally drifting into Jamesian inner thoughts and images. The narrator is Daniele Mallarico, a 75-years-old and ailing widower, with declining abilities as an artist and book illustrator (he is currently at work illustrating an edition of James’ “The Jolly Corner”), living in Milan.
He is asked by his daughter to come to his childhood home, a sixth floor flat in Naples, to look after his four-year-old grandson Mario, while his parents, both academics, are away for three days attending a conference in Sardinia. Reluctantly he agrees and arrives in Naples. The relationship between the disagreeable parents is extremely bad, and they separately complain bitterly about each other to Daniele; but the child is bright, and verbally and in other ways precocious (though he could not yet read).
After the parents had left, Mario showed unbounded energy, constantly made his exhausted grandfather play with him, so that he is unable to work on his illustrations for the James story. Already during the first day, Mario became more and more undisciplined and hostile.
Various incidents remind Daniele of his unhappy youth in that house. He had hated his father, and had had murderous thoughts. His family had wanted him to become a mechanic, while he had the talent and wish to become an artist. He had broken away at last, but was emotionally crippled. Later, in the dark, both in Milan and now back in the Naples apartment, he saw the ghosts of the people of his youth, mocking him. Since here there was an echo of James’ story, he thought of using these images for his illustrations, peopling the rooms he drew with Spencer Brydon (the main character in the James story) and with these ghosts. There is a dramatic scene when Daniele and Mario are painting side by side, Daniele on his illustrations – and the four-year-old Mario on an uncanny likeness of his old grandfather as a ghost. The sequel to this episode, and the effect it had on Daniele’s anyway waning belief in his art, are equally dramatic.
The flat has a balcony thrust out over a void above the street below. It always scares Daniele, and it becomes the scene of a terrible trick Mario plays on him. This is followed by many horrifying pages in which the old man is reduced to a helpless child, utterly dependent on the wilful four-year-old: one cannot believe that the story will end well.
The end of the novel is followed by an Appendix consisting of Daniele’s diary entries just before he goes to Naples and just after he has arrived there. They are accompanied by sketches which are difficult to read, at least on my Kindle. I found the Appendix not QUITE as obscure as James’ story, but is certainly the most Jamesian part of the book. It reflects on Daniele’s earlier life, on his art, and on how he was struggling to interpret James’ story in images. Lahiri’s Introduction comments on the significance of this Appendix; but it did nothing for me except causing regret that it was there at all. If it had not been there, I would have given the novel five stars. My apologies to aficionados of James: it is doubtlessly my fault that I cannot appreciate the man whom Colm Toibin calls “The Master”.