The Rabbit Punch

I entered instantly into the piercing clarity of these pages, utterly absorbed
JHUMPA LAHIRI

Hypnotic . . . filled with unforgettable characters
SANDRO VERONESI

An intense, moving book
DOMENICO STARNONE

It is a June morning in Milan when Sandro abandons his flat, his job and the increasingly unfulfilled promises of a stiflingly hostile city to return to his hometown of Rimini, on the Adriatic coast. His mother, Caterina, has been dead for a few years, but his father - headstrong, taciturn Nando - soldiers on in the same house of Sandros youth.

The two men could not be more different - Nando a former railway worker, Sandro a young professional in advertising - but they have one thing in common: their passion for winning. Nando and Caterina used to dance in amateur ballroom competitions up and down the Riviera - and they danced to win. Sandro inherited his obsession with success from them, but the stakes are a lot higher at the card table than on the dancefloor.

As the days and weeks go by and their forced cohabitation gently returns them to the old rhythms of a past life - sweet in its nostalgia but punctured by memories heavy with sorrow - it becomes clear that both Nando and Sandro are hiding difficult truths. Where does Nando disappear to every night, driving around Rimini in his battered car, his old dancing shoes hidden in the trunk? And what did Sandro leave in Milan - besides an empty flat and a broken heart?

An intense novel that floors the reader . . . Magical
CORRIERE DELLA SERA

A gem. Heartbreaking and light-hearted
LA STAMPA

Unexpected and impossible to forget
IL FOGLIO

A ticking time bomb of a book
IL MESSAGGERO