Clandestinity
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- £8.99
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
In this four-story suite, a modern master of Italian literature delves into the wonder, grotesquery, strangeness, and desire of the human condition.
Combining and distorting elements of fables, fairy tales, and the alienating force of society, each of Moresco’s stories features the central character at a different time of his life: childhood, adolescence, young adulthood. In these beautiful and unsettling narratives, a vivid physical world can’t hide the strangeness of surroundings and the dream-like logic governing events. In “Blue Room,” the adolescent protagonist carries on a voyeuristic relationship with a blind old woman in a mysterious clinic. In the title story, a stunning act of violence deepens the nightmarish tones and the protagonist’s disorientation. Moresco’s stories, full of bodily parts, functions, and desires, present a world where physical curiosity competes with shame, and the price of watchfulness is the secrecy and loneliness of isolation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Moresco (Distant Light) introduces an obscene and nostalgic dreamscape in this wondrously filthy collection. The four stories follow an unnamed protagonist at different periods of his life and lean into his perverse curiosity. In "The Blue Room," the teenage protagonist develops a voyeuristic relationship with a dying old woman he calls the Signorina, sometimes watching her as she urinates. "The Hole" delves into his childhood obsession with an outhouse, in which he's fascinated by all the small creatures he spies in it. Moresco reaches the height of his craft with "The King," a story about a group of nobles who receive a king in exile. Moresco's meandering, postmodern storytelling can be hard to follow, but the author is adept at conjuring mood and creating fascinating texture. At times there is a fairy tale–like quality, as when he recounts how the king "crossed the border secretly, through woods, by night." Though the characters live in a technological age of motor scooters and television sets, their minds and hearts seem to occupy a simpler time. Those with a taste for the outré will be enchanted.
