Domenico Starnone's three short novels: Ties, Trick, Trust.

 - Ties is the first little novel in this group of three. It was published in 2017, followed by Trick in 2018 and Trust in 2019. The author Domenico Starnone was born in Naples and lives in Rome, and is regarded by many literary scholars as being the real Elena Ferrante, or at least a co-author (see below). He's one of Italy's most highly regarded literary authors, and has won numerous prestigious awards. The books are translated into English by noted author Jhumpa Lahiri.

- Ties is in three parts:

- Book One: The husband Aldo and his wife Vanda have been married for twelve years. They have two children, Sandro and Anna. Unfortunately he hooks up with a girl he meets, Lidia. His wife kicks him out and secures custody of the children. 

- Book Two: Aldo and Vanda, obviously reconciled, have been married for fifty-two years now, and are in their mid seventies. Their relationship, however, is like walking through a minefield. Their grown up children, Sandro and Anna, detest each other and never see each other, and also detest their parents. What a fun family! The parents, Aldo and Vanda, go for a week’s holiday and return to a trashed house. Their pet cat Labes is also missing. They don't know who trashed their house and belongings, but suspect a disgruntled neighbour. 

- As Aldo sorts through his old photos, books, and memories while cleaning up, he notices that the old photos of Lidia that he keeps hidden are missing. 

- Book Three: This is the daughter Anna’s story. She indulges in a rant to her brother Sandro blasting parenthood and children. ‘Our parents destroyed us’ she rails. The kids are burning with hate for their parents. They see clearly the nature of the marriage and the lies it's built upon. 

- There is an interesting twist at the end. Very satisfying. 

 

- Jhumpa Lahiri’s Introduction to Trick is excellent. It focuses on Henry James and Kafka and the intermeshing at play in Starnone's novel.

- Betta, Daniele Mallarico’s daughter, and her husband Saverio, both academics, need to attend a mathematics conference for a few days and ask Daniele to babysit their four year old son Mario in his old family home In Naples. He lives in Milan, is a successful illustrator, and is 75 years old. Obviously it's going to be a challenge.

- Betta and Saverio are having huge relationship problems. Betta, according to Saverio, has become attracted to the new director of the maths department. The couple snipe in front of Daniele. Typically of Neapolitans they exhibit little inhibition or class. Starnone renders them as pretty ugly types of humans. They're always arguing and things are always contentious. It's passion out of control.

- All human features, emotions and processes, are described by Starnone with exquisite precision. He builds an intensity into the seemingly quotidian.

- Daniele's anxiety about the ageing process and its debilitating consequences is front and centre. His publisher calls him as he's minding the kid to say he's not happy with his illustrations for the forthcoming deluxe edition of the Henry James book The Jolly Corner, a ghost story published in 1908, and he urgently needs him to re-do them.

- But the grandkid Mario is demanding and needs constant attention. Their playing together gets a little tedious and it goes on and on. At one point Mario locks him on the balcony. He's isolated for hours out there during a fierce storm so he gets cold and drenched. ‘Locked out’ being his old man situation in life.

- The Appendix: Offers us Daniele’s reflections on his life, his art, his obsessions, his family, Henry James’ story and its characters. It's rather unfocused and foggy, but it's honest and we see his illustrations and how ghost-like they are, and why the publisher might well see them as problematic.

 

- Teresa is twenty-three and Pietro thirty. She was his former and brilliant student in high school and she 'fell in love' with him. A few years later they become involved and decide to live together. But it's a highly dramatic and destructive relationship. Teresa in particular is hyper-intense and subject to sudden mood swings. Teresa contained a surplus of vital energy, and when she over-flowed nothing could hold her back. (Shades of My Brilliant Friend?)

- Teresa insists at one point that, to bind them forever, they disclose a deep secret about each other, one that each of them keeps hidden because it shames them. ‘The despicable part of me’ thinks Pietro. The disclosures are serious enough to undermine their relationship and they soon split up. But they never forget the vulnerability they've incurred, and the power each of them hold over the other.  

- Pietro soon meets Nadia, seduces her and marries her. She's the exact opposite of Teresa - small and quiet, but also quite beautiful. The marriage, despite its ups and downs, lasts and they have three children. 

- Pietro becomes a very successful essayist and author of books that are highly critical of Italy's public school system. He's constantly invited to give speeches and sit on panels, and he quickly learns the art of persuasive argumentation, creating slogans, phrases, and statements with appeal. He enjoys his celebrity life but Nadia resents his absences, and resents the fact she had to give up her promising academic career. 

- Over the years Pietro and his former lover Teresa keep in touch by letter writing, until one day she suddenly stops. She has moved to the US and become a highly regarded scientist and professor at MIT. 

- The final two sections of the novel are narrated by Emma, Pietro's daughter, and Teresa, now in her early seventies. Pietro is to be given a prestigious national prize for his life's work and Teresa has been invited to speak at the occasion. So the ending is a bit ominous. 

- Jhumpa Lahiri, the translator, summarises Trust and the prior two novels very nicely: It is not the final instalment of a trilogy, but certainly the third side of a triangle. All three books feature diverse first-person narrators, tense marriages, fraught relationships between parent and child. Running themes include a quest for liberty, the collision of past and present, building a career, fear, aging, anger, mediocrity, talent, and competition.

(The author of the books published under the pseudonym Elena Ferrante might be Italian author Domenico Starnone, Literary Hub reports.

In an article for the website, comparative literature scholar Elisa Sotgiu considers stylometric studies conducted by academics searching for Ferrante’s true identity. Stylometry is the analysis of literary works, using vocabulary, syntax, and other features, to try to match a text with its author.

Sotgiu concludes, “[T]hat Starnone, either alone or in partnership with his wife [translator Anita Raja], sat down and typed the novels that were published under the name of Elena Ferrante seems to be almost beyond doubt.”

Ferrante is a worldwide publishing sensation, best known for her Neapolitan Novels. The books have sold millions of copies and formed the basis for the HBO series My Brilliant Friend.

In 2016, Claudio Gatti concluded that Raja was the author behind the books, but a study by scholars last year found that Starnone, author of Ties and Trick, was most likely responsible for Ferrante’s oeuvre.

Sotgiu writes that the outcome of the studies is something of a mixed blessing but concludes, “Elena Ferrante is still a pleasure to read. And she is also the greatest literary mystery of our time.”)