Sacha Naspini

Nives

Le case del malcontento

What happens when the person who raised you turns out to be a monster? Paul Auster meets Stephen King in this poetic yet disturbing investigation into the darkest corners of human nature. On August 12, 1999 an eight year-old girl, Laura, goes missing. Fourteen years later, long after all hope had been lost, she is found alive in a container truck. Luca is having dinner with his father, a well-respected anthropologist, when the police raids their home and arrests the man. The charges against professor Carlo Maria Balestri are extremely serious--could the face of Evil itself hide behind the mask of a renowned academic? The nightmare doesn't end with the arrest of the abductor. In fact, his capture marks the start of wholly new, fragile lives for the people affected by his crimes. It's now Luca's turn to be held captive by his perverse father-- in a prison made not of metal but of blood, one from which it seems impossible to escape. He becomes obsessed with Laura, who seems to resume a normal life but carries inside her the weight of an unspeakable trauma. Emotionally derailed, Luca tries to connect with her, even follows her around Milan. The two became entangled in a spiral of guilt, fear, and manipulation that, at every turn, reveals the implacable pervasiveness of evil. With prose whose power and sharpness bring to mind Truman Capote's writing, Sacha Naspini paints a harrowing, unforgettable portrait of our society and its darkest shadows.

Oxygen

What would you do if one day you found out the person who raised you is a monster? Laura disappeared into thin air in 1999, at eight years old. She was found in a metal container, fourteen years later. Luca is having dinner with his father dinner when they are interrupted by a visit from the carabinieri, who take his father away. Luca can only watch the scene unfold, helpless. The charges brought against esteemed anthropologist Carlo Maria Balestri are extremely grave: multiple counts of abduction, torture, murder, and concealing his victims’ bodies. What would you do if one day you found out that the person who raised you was a monster? Oxygen is a story of the aftermath of such evil. Balestri’s capture does not end the hell he created. The professor’s perverse experiment continues: he may no longer be able to imprison children in iron boxes, but the legacy of his crimes still reverberates through the lives of all those close to him and his victims. The question that continues to ring out is: who locked up who?

Clarissa Botsford

What would you do if one day you found out the person who raised you is a monster?

Te mica lo sai che vuol dire nascere di traverso. «Libro dolorosissimo, come non se ne leggevano da anni. Potentissimo». Valeria Parrella «Un romanzo felicemente sorprendente. Teso, sanguigno, ben orchestrato strutturalmente e linguisticamente. Una lingua-immagine che accompagna il protagonista nell’inferno più nero». Ermanno Paccagnini Aldo è un disertore della Prima Guerra. Invece di partire per il fronte decide di costruire un rifugio sotterraneo nei boschi per prendersi cura della sua famiglia: una moglie, un figlio. Bastiano è un bambino. Al chiuso della “tana” sperimenta le contingenze della vita: il freddo, il caldo, la fame. Soprattutto la fame. Finché la guerra non finisce e Bastiano esce allo scoperto. Ma lo fa segnato dagli stenti, ogni impulso fa capo al luogo da cui proviene: una buca. E poi la propensione alla natura (vera, bestiale), che si infrange con le dinamiche violente che comandano il mondo degli uomini... Bastiano è un ragazzo quando impara l’amore. Sperimenta il carcere, quindi la ferocia del secondo conflitto mondiale. Si confronta con inaspettati segreti di famiglia... I Cariolanti è un romanzo di deformazione. Tredici fotografie di un’Italia gotica, rurale, notturna. Tredici istantanee della vita di un uomo nato di traverso. Questa è la sua storia.

Sacha Naspini

About

Books

Join the club