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★ “Every character...is a full-fledged human being filled with desire, regret, resentment, bitterness, and hope. At the same time, the Neapolitan setting comes equally alive...Starnone, it seems, can do no wrong. A complexly structured masterpiece.”

— Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review), Mar 17 2023

“Indirection like that, stirring up terrific curiosity, proves one of the novel’s best gambits...I’d call it the best of Lahiri’s Starnone essays — a fine fit for the best of his recent creative surge.”

— Washington Post, Nov 10 2021

“With a few deft strokes of his concentrated prose, [Starnone] tears down the curtains, blinding his audience with daylight.”

— Los Angeles Review of Books, Nov 9 2021

“A sweeping examination of aging, love, and success... This is the third of Starnone’s novels that Lahiri has translated over the last six years, and her deft hand seamlessly reveals Starnone’s masterful narrative at every turn.”

— Booklist, Nov 9 2021

“A short, sharp novel that cuts like a scalpel to the core of its characters... Starnone has earned a reader’s trust with another agile analysis of frail humanity.”

— Los Angeles Times, Nov 8 2021

“This type of revelation is what translating Starnone’s work has taught me about language and about words—that they change as we blink and that they are rich with alternatives. It is my engagement with his texts that has rendered me, definitively, a translator.”

— The New Yorker, Nov 6 2021

“Electrifying... [Starnone] portrays unflinchingly the violence, physical and verbal, that can erupt within the closest relationships.”

— Financial Times, Nov 5 2021

“An Italian master gives it a suspenseful twist in this vibrant novel that’s equal parts Endless Love, la dolce vita, and unreliable narration...A rip of a read.”

— Oprah Daily, Oct 13 2021

“Absolutely brilliant! I have to say: Jhumpa Lahiri has done an amazing job. She is the best translator a writer could wish for.”

— RTE Radio, Oct 12 2021

“Starnone is a masterful storyteller who has crafted compelling, original, powerful books that invite close reading for their own literary merits.”

— Reading in Translation, Oct 11 2021

“Lahiri conveys the themes of loss perfectly.”

— Los Angeles Times, Aug 24 2021

“The story, it turns out, isn’t just about trust—but also about how we create our own lovers to suit the selves we’d like to be—or, at any cost, not to be. Richly nuanced while also understated, Starnone’s latest appearance in English is a novel to be savored.”

— Kirkus Reviews (Starred), Aug 18 2021

“Starnone (Trick) returns with an elegant story of a man’s lifelong struggle to perfect his public persona while hiding a secret.”

— Publishers Weekly, Jul 16 2021

“Acclaimed Italian novelist and National Book Award finalist Starnone’s newest novel explores vulnerability, relationships, and the gulf between our public and private selves.”

— The Millions, Jul 15 2021

“Starnone’s precise writing gives the novel a rich foundation...”

— Vox, Nov 12 2018

“Starnone, one of Italy’s most accomplished novelists, knows the territory and delivers it wonderfully.”

— The Guardian, Apr 19 2018

"A superb, sometimes unsettling intergenerational portrait hitting on basic truths."

— Library Journal (Starred Review), Apr 1 2018

“Starnone has written an emotionally complex, layered story whose brevity serves to amplify profound themes of self-identity, marriage, aging, death and the daunting sacrifices of the creative life.”

— Shelf Awareness (Starred Review), Mar 30 2018

“Starnone’s novella, translated by Jhumpa Lahiri, seizes you and doesn’t let go for 150 pages. The tone is cool and contained. Hysteria threatens, and is kept away — although only just.”

— The Times, Mar 18 2018

“Domenico Starnone’s superb Italian novel, ‘Trick,’ [...] [is] a marvel of metafiction that feels fresh and surprising.”

— The Washington Post, Mar 13 2018