“An old man reflects on his life, his mother, the women he’s loved. If Starnone’s latest work to appear in English bears certain parallels to a Hemingway novella with a strikingly similar title, that’s intentional—right down to the narrator’s casual remarks to a young boy about the sea monster just out of sight... Throughout the book (beautifully translated by Stransky), Starnone’s sensitivity, nuance, and subtlety are wonderful to behold—but he doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously, either. Page after page is imbued, alongside everything else, with an achingly sweet humor. A deceptively simple work and an exquisite addition to Starnone’s oeuvre.”
Read the full starred review in Kirkus Reviews.
