The Day Before Happiness

A young orphan boy grows up in Naples, playing football, roaming the city’s streets and hidden places. The older boys call him ‘monkey’ because he can climb anywhere. He is alone, apart from Don Gaetano, the apartment caretaker, who feeds him, teaches him to play scopa, and tells him stories about women, history and the dark secrets of Naples’ past. Then one day the boy sees a young girl standing at a window. It is an encounter that will haunt his life for years and, eventually, shape his destiny. 

Lyrical and exuberant, told with the simplicity of a fairy tale and the intensity of a memory, The Day Before Happiness is the story of friendship, a city and what makes us who we are.

Powered by a combination of charm, warmth and simplicity… poignancy gives way to wry humour at regular intervals throughout the book, and the result is a brittle, lyrical, finely poised tragicomedy. Malcolm Forbes, Herald Scotland 

An economically expressed yet vividly imagined coming-of-age story… De Luca is a native of Naples and in a sense this book is a love letter to the city. Roger Cox, Scotsman 

High hopes in clear language, cautions against real evil, and scenes thick with poetic sentiment – these elements fuel the warmth to be found in De Luca’s brief but affecting novels. The National 

Rights sold
France (Gallimard)
Germany (Ullstein)
Israel (Hakibbutz Hameuchad)
Spain (Seix Barral/Bromera)
US/UK (Other Press/Penguin)