A young orphan boy, nicknamed “Smilzo”, grows up in Naples, playing football, roaming the city’s streets and hidden places. 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. The older boys call him ‘monkey’ because he can climb anywhere, scaling towering walls and windows and defying his peers. The boy becomes fixated on one window where he sees a female figure – part woman, part child – once appear. This phantom later returns to challenge the memory of the senses and posit the possibility of an impossible love. As Smilzo comes of age, he learns that existence is ritual, flesh, and defiance.
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)
