Veronica Raimo - Böcker

A tense, provocative and nuanced novel about a rape accusation in an idyllic commune from the author of the 2024 International Booker Prize-longlisted Lost on Me I was in my sixth month when the girl came knocking. The girl came empty handed. On the threshold, her hair down, her jeans tight. 'Are you the professor’s wife?' the girl asked me. 'I have to speak to you,' she said. 'The professor raped me,' the girl said. While on vacation on an idyllic island called Miden, a seemingly aimless woman meets an attractive man and leaves her country to be with him. A few months later, newly pregnant and just beginning to feel comfortable in her lover’s space, her life is upended when a girl arrives at the door.Slight and pretty, the girl discloses a drawn out and violent affair she’s had with her professor, the father of the woman’s unborn child. In alternating perspectives, the professor and his girlfriend reflect upon their lives, each other, and their interloper. As the community gathers testimony and considers the case, the couple is forced to confront their own paranoia, fetishes, and transgressions in light of the student’s accusations.Provocative and unnerving, The Girl at the Door explores the bureaucracy of a scandal, and the thin line between lust and possession. In an age in which blunt power and fickle nuance take turns upon the stage, Raimo has delivered an intoxicating exploration of the politics and power of sex.

The prize-winning 100,000-copy Italian bestseller A 2023 book of the year for the Financial Times, the Irish Times, the New European, Marie Claire and Largehearted Boy'Deliciously enjoyable' Katherine Heiny'I adored it' Naoise Dolan'Wild, funny and disturbing' Roddy Doyle'Thrillingly original' Monica Ali'It would be simply impossible for a book this good to go unnoticed' Big Issue _________________________________A delightfully funny Italian novel about sex, love, family - and how a writer transforms her life into artVero has grown up in Rome with her eccentric family: an omnipresent mother who is devoted to her own anxiety, a father ruled by hygienic and architectural obsessions, and a precocious genius brother at the centre of their attention. As she becomes an adult, Vero's need to strike out on her own leads her into bizarre and comical situations: she tries (and fails) to run away to Paris at the age of fifteen; she moves into an unwitting older boyfriend's house after they have been together for less than a week; and she sets up a fraudulent (and wildly successful) street clothing stall to raise funds to go to Mexico. Most of all, she falls in love - repeatedly, dramatically, and often with the most unlikely and inappropriate of candidates.As she continues to plot escapades and her mother's relentless tracking methods and guilt-tripping mastery thwart her at every turn, it is no wonder that Vero becomes a writer - and a liar - inventing stories in a bid for her own sanity.Narrated in a voice as wryly ironic as it is warm and affectionate, Lost on Me seductively explores the slippery relationship between deceitfulness and creativity (beginning with Vero's first artistic achievement: a painting she steals from a school classmate and successfully claims as her own). Deceptively simple, its tenderness offset by moments of cool brutality, Lost on Me is a masterwork of human observation.

LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2024SHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN FLORIO PRIZE 2024The 100,000 copy Italian bestseller for fans of Rachel Cusk and Deborah Levy'Deliciously enjoyable' Katherine Heiny'I adored it' Naoise Dolan'Hilarious' Roddy Doyle'Thrillingly original' Monica AliVero has grown up in Rome with her eccentric family: an omnipresent mother who is devoted to her own anxiety; a father ruled by hygienic and architectural obsessions; and a precocious genius brother at the centre of their attention. As she becomes an adult, Vero's need to strike out on her own leads her into bizarre and comical situations, and a complicated relationship with truth and storytelling ...