Trick

by Domenico Starnone Narrated by Will Damron

Overview

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

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Joseph Luzzi

It's difficult not to think of Elena Ferrante when reading Starnone's new novel, and not just because Starnone is married to Anita Raja, the translator reputedly writing under the Ferrante pseudonym. Both authors brilliantly probe the complexity of society in Naples and the unsettling psychology of a creative mind that wants to make something beautiful out of life's mess and can crave public affirmation at great cost.

Publishers Weekly

02/05/2018
Starnone’s astute and emotionally precise novel (after Ties) follows famed illustrator Daniele Mallarico as he returns to his childhood home in Naples at the request of his daughter, Betta. Daniele is reluctantly tasked with watching his four-year-old grandson, Mario, while Betta and her husband, Saverio, head to Milan for an academic conference and a chance to discuss their failing marriage. Daniele’s three-day visit to the apartment where he was raised prompts him to reflect on the course of his life, and he begins to see apparitions from his past. Struggling to complete a project for a book publisher while sparring with the thoughtful and rebellious Mario, Daniele confronts his mortality and the ephemeral nature of art. Lahiri’s translation preserves the poignancy and humor of the first-person narration, which balances compassion and repressed irritation. The book is packed with endearing moments and clever observations about familial relationships (both Betta and Saverio confide in Daniele right off the bat, forcing him into the thick of their tension). This remarkably layered work encourages rereading to unearth subtle and new interpretations. (Mar.)

From the Publisher

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 novelTrickhas 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’sTies



"Tiesis...the leanest, most understated and emotionally powerful novel by Domenico Starnone.”

—Rachel Donadio,The New York Times



“Tiesis puzzle-like, architectural, a novel ingeniously constructed.”

—The New Yorker



“Tiesis 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 novelthat 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,Tiesis 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 ofMercury



“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 ofMayumi and the Sea of Happiness



“A superlative novel,Tiesoffers 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



“Tiesis a masterfully crafted synthesis of Starnone’s storytelling technique and prose style.”

—Christian Raimo,Internazionale



“Tiesis 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

Library Journal

★ 04/01/2018
In this follow-up to his bitingly insightful Ties, Premio Strega winner Starnone again explores complex familial relationships. A famous illustrator losing his predominance, 70-plus Daniele Mallarico winds up tending his preternaturally smart four-year-old grandson Mario when Mario's at-odds parents head to a mathematics conference. As a grandfather, Daniele is no sweetheart, often tetchy and dismissive of his young charge; Mario gives as good as he gets, and their dialog snaps, crackles, and pops deliciously. As Lahiri's introduction explains, the Italian title Scherzetto derives from the verb scherzare, to joke or play, and there's certainly playfulness here, but with an edge. The novel takes place during four cold November days at the Naples apartment Daniele inherited from his parents and where his daughter's family now lives; for Daniele, aching memories thus vie with present awareness of his waning powers and his concern for Mario—"I don't know if I'm scared for the child or scared of the child"—to create a palpable sense of urgency. VERDICT A superb, sometimes unsettling intergenerational portrait hitting on basic truths.

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2018-01-23
Starnone's latest novel describes a man's visit with his grandson.A new book from Starnone (Ties, 2017, etc.) is an event to celebrate. An exquisite Italian writer believed to be Elena Ferrante's husband, he writes slim, elegant, meticulously crafted novels—and this is his best yet. An older man, an illustrator, comes from Milan, where he is currently living, to Naples, where he grew up, to look after his grandson while his daughter and son-in-law attend an academic conference. Mario, the 4-year-old, knows all kinds of things, like how to turn on the stove, how to set the table, and how to change channels on the TV. He's annoying, in the way that 4-year-old know-it-alls are annoying. Meanwhile, his grandfather, whose health is no longer great and who no longer remembers exactly where he put the phone or whether he closed the balcony door, is struggling to complete the illustrations for "The Jolly Corner," a Henry James story. In that story, a man returns to his childhood home after a long period of time away and becomes obsessed with the idea of who he might have been, what life he might have led, if he'd stayed. He's desperate to catch sight of his own ghost. Starnone's novel echoes James' story but it also works entirely independently. Mario's grandpa has ghosts of his own to confront. All the novel's action occurs over the course of a few days. During that time, our elderly illustrator comes to doubt himself, his life, his achievements. He argues with Mario, and he tries to draw. Deceptively simple, the novel is also witty to the point of hilarity (see Mario's argument with his grandpa about cartoons) and achingly moving.A gorgeous account of a man's struggle to reckon with the life he's lived and the lives he hasn't.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170609581
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	04/30/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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