The pain according to Matteo
Finalist at the Berto Prize 2008
Matteo Carnevale is a thirty-year-old funeral home employee. His daily encounters with death and grief give him a window onto a world that is profoundly alien to him. Matteo is incapable of suffering, and he looks upon the feelings and pain of others as an extraterrestrial might. His particular shortcoming soon proves to be a remarkable source of strength, a skeleton key to every door on earth, allowing him to emanate an unholy attraction, seducing all those who have the good fortune to make his acquaintance.
The first one to yield to Matteo’s charms is Filippo—a homosexual make-up artist specializing in corpses, the son of the owners of the funeral home. Next comes Claudia, a beautiful and obsessive music therapist who falls desperately in love with Matteo after meeting him by chance following the death, and funeral, of her father. This marks the beginning of a ménage à trois that quickly degenerates into an escalating duel of savagery, which Matteo observes with innocent indifference.
The pain according to Matteo is a stunning first novel, a distillate of cruelty and surgically precise language, a love story in which even the most violent passions seem to explode into clinical accuracy worthy of a dissection table—as if to say that our heart, in the end, is just another machine.
Press reviews
Filippo La Porta - XL - la Repubblica
<p align=justify><b>Filippo La Porta - XL - la Repubblica</B><br>Read more
Lo stile dell'autrice è insolitamente maturo, virato sul grottesco e a tratti aforistico.<br>
Giovanni Pacchiano - Il Sole 24 Ore
<p align=justify><b>Giovanni Pacchiano - Il Sole 24 Ore</B><br>Read more
Molto divertente, benchè ci faccia ridere amaro.<bR>
Benedetta Marietti - D - la Repubblica delle Donne
Read moreBenedetta Marietti - D - la Repubblica delle Donne
Un romanzo efficace nel rendere con una lingua chirurgica e tagliente la difficoltà e la stravaganza delle relazioni inte...
Federica Maccotta - la Repubblica
<p align=justify><b>Federica Maccotta - la Repubblica</B><br>Read more
Un'autopsia di eros e crudeltà.<bR>
Monia Cappuccini - Liberazione
<p align=justify><b>Monia Cappuccini - Liberazione</B><br>VeronicaRead more
Raimo è senza dubbio
la chirurga della parola.<br>