A weary man faces the ghosts of his past while caring for his grandson in Naples in this
National Book Award finalist novel by the acclaimed author of Ties. 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 Tricks is
an extremely playful literary composition by the Strega Prize-winning novelist whom many
consider to be one of Italy's greatest living writers.
