The House on Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone

Narrated against the vivid backdrop of Naples in the 1960s, The House on Via Gemito has established itself as a masterpiece of contemporary Italian literature. Translated by Oonagh Stransky.

The modest apartment on Via Gemito smells of paint and white spirit. The furniture is pushed up against the wall to create a make-shift studio, and drying canvases must be moved off the beds each night. Federì, a railway clerk, is convinced that, if he didn’t have a family to feed, he’d be a world-famous painter. Talented, ambitious, and frustrated, his life is marked by bitter disappointment. His long-suffering wife and their four sons bear the brunt. Years later, his first-born son will tell the story of a man he spent his whole life trying not to resemble.