Trust
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER LONGLISTED AND WINNER OF THE STREGA PRIZE THE HOUSE ON VIA GEMITO
A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE WEEK
"What is most thrilling about Trust is its overwhelming sense of unease... the selves we 'make' for ourselves and others may be the most dangerous of the stories we tell." —Times Literary Supplement
"Compelling… One of Italy's most accomplished novelists." —The Guardian
"Starnone packs a huge amount into a small compass." —The Sunday Times
Pietro and Teresa's love affair is tempestuous and passionate. After yet another terrible argument, she gets an idea: they should tell each other something they've never told another person, something they're too ashamed to tell anyone. In this way, Teresa thinks, they will remain intimately connected forever.
A few days after sharing their shameful secrets, they break up. Not long after, Pietro meets Nadia, falls in love, and proposes. But the shadow of the secret he confessed to Teresa haunts him, and Teresa herself periodically reappears, standing at the crossroads of every major moment in his life. Or is it he who seeks her out?
Trust asks how much we are willing to bend to show the world our best side, knowing full well that when we are at our most vulnerable, we are also at our most dangerous.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Starnone (Trick) returns with an elegant story of a man's lifelong struggle to perfect his public persona while hiding a secret. Pietro Vella, a self-important 30-something high school teacher, has a tempestuous affair with Teresa Quadraro, a former student who is eight years his junior. She suggests that in order to preserve their love, they each tell the other their worst secret. His involves an "embarrassing affair," while hers remains unspecified. But their increasingly abusive relationship—he talks down to her, she threatens him with a knife, he drags her by the hair in a fit of jealousy over another man—doesn't last long. Pietro later marries Nadia, a former colleague, yet continues to obsess over Teresa. When Pietro is 80, his daughter, Emma, lobbies to ensure he is awarded a prestigious teaching award. Much to Pietro's horror, Teresa, now a renowned scientist, is invited to speak at the ceremony. Lahiri's intelligent translation captures Starnone's subtle account of the characters' shifting power dynamics, and the novel ends with Teresa's take on their affair, in which she admits she still loves him and ambiguously claims to be "far more dangerous than he." Teresa's voice is a tonic after Pietro's misogynistic narration, but it's too brief. This will leave readers wanting more.
