Tremi chi è innocente
by Frandino, Barbara
A mother, a father, a son, and a dog: this is the raw material of Barbara Frandino’s latest psychological thriller after the success of her previous book È quello che ti meriti. With the relentlessness of Shutter Island and the intelligent ferocity of Anatomy of a Fall, the author returns to investigate the small universe of an exploded family.
Nico, the son, is a sixteen-year-old with a mind out of the ordinary, a minimal social life, and a considerable number of imaginary afflictions. His home has been infiltrated by an unhappiness
that infects everything, transforming words, desires, and dreams into bladed weapons.
The story begins with a murder. And anyone could be the killer. Everyone has a motive and everyone in the family has a life full of secrets and guilt, cracks and glimmers.
When the body of a man is fished out of the river, Nico is certain he knows who it is. For a very simple reason: he was the one who killed him. If only he hadn’t followed him that day… Or if he had followed him and had just wished for a less definitive punishmen than death. He would give anything to go back to before it all happened.
In reconstructing the facts, in an attempt to absolve or convict himself, Nico finds himself ruthlessly and wryly analyzing himself and his ramshackle family: his father, an engineer involved in the unsuccessful construction of thermodynamic happiness; and his mother, with her obsession with books, in which she would like to lose herself and disappear. And then a cowardly and inconclusive uncle, whom Nico fears he resembles too much; and a dog, the only one who seems to have figured out the simple essence of life. But, above all, it reveals to us how everyone, everyone except the dog, has something to hide. Because in this story, as in life, it is never clear who the good guys are. And how to break the silence when it accumulates like nitroglycerin. Nico is supported in his journey by his love for cinema, through which he
filters and interprets reality.
And there is also Emma’s cutting affection, the classmate with whom he is in love.
The writing, at times cruel at times wry, always very effective, is the real weapon of this
novel/world. A perfect device that lets us glimpse the minimal distance between who we are and who we might be.
- Publishing house Einaudi
- Year of publication 2025
- Number of pages 208
- ISBN 9788806268213
- Foreign Rights Valeria Zito
- Ebook www.einaudi.it
- Price 17.50
Frandino, Barbara
Barbara Frandino, a journalist, screenwriter, producer, and author of documentaries and radio programs, published with Einaudi the novel È quello che ti meriti (2020). She also edited for Einaudi the short story collections Corpo a corpo (2008) and Ti vengo a cercare (2011). She has written two children’s books, Jason (Salani 2013) and Che paura (Fabbri 2017), and coauthored books published by Feltrinelli in the series “Save the parents”.
