Victor Lodato – författare

A fiercely funny and touching debut novel about a girl with a sharp and mischevious voice of her own – and her quest to discover the truth about her sister’s death‘I want to be awful. I want to do awful things and why not? Dull is dull is dull is my life. Like now, it’s night, not yet time for bed but too late to be outside, and the two of them reading reading reading with their eyes moving like the lights inside a copy machine. When I was helping put the dishes in the washer tonight, I broke a plate. I said sorry Ma it slipped. But it didn’t slip, that’s how I am sometimes, and I want to be worse. Awful is easy if you make it your one and only.’Fear doesn't come naturally to Mathilda Savitch. She prefers to look right at the things nobody else can bring themselves to mention: for example, the fact that her beloved older sister is dead, pushed in front of a train by a man who is still on the loose. Still, after a year of spying and provocations, she's no closer to the truth about her sister's death than the day it happened. When Mathilda finally cracks her email password, a secret life opens up, one that swiftly draws her into a world of clouded motives and strange emotion. Somewhere in it lies the key to waking her family up from their dream of grief. To cross into that underworld and see what her sister saw, she has to risk everything that matters to her.Mathilda Savitch is furiously funny, awkward and tender; a compelling page-turner, and the debut of an extraordinary novelistic talent.

Full Length, Drama Drama / Characters: 2m, 2f (Conceived for African-American actors, but casts of other races are possible) / Multiple sets The play follows an African-American family in a low-income neighborhood whose lives are ultimately ruined by their surroundings. Clive arrives unexpectedly at the house of his mother and his sister. He says that he is fleeing from the police - but perhaps it's another one of his delusions. Unbeknownst to him, he has shown up on a tragic anniversary. Three years prior, his sister's child was killed in a brutal shooting. As fate seems bent on shattering the walls, mother Mae valiantly attempts to keep house. Mr. Lodato is a 2002-2003 Guggenheim Fellow, as well as the recipient of the 2002 L. Arnold Weissberger Award for Motherhouse

Eight-year-old Edgar Allan Fini is haunted – by his father's absence, his mother's secrets, and the ghosts of his grandmother's past. But he recalls nothing of the accident about which people still whisper. When Edgar meets a man with his own tragic story, he is drawn deep into a damaged, grief-stricken world. Lucy must confront the demons that plague her, to save her son and herself. Tinged with wonder and a dark fairytale heart, Edgar and Lucy is a gripping coming-of-age story about the painful and loving ties that bind us. Praise for Edgar and Lucy: 'Gorgeous. There is poetry on every page... with delicate, precise observations and unexpected imagery' Sunday Times. 'On every page Lodato's prose sings with a robust, openhearted wit, making Edgar & Lucy a delight to read... A riveting and exuberant ride' New York Times Book Review. 'I love this book. Profoundly spiritual and hilariously specific... An unusual and intimate epic that manages to capture the wonder and terror of both child and parenthood with an uncanny clarity' Lena Dunham, bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl. 'Wonder-filled and magisterial... The book pushes the boundaries of beauty' Chicago Tribune. 'A quirky coming-of-age novel that deepens into something dark and strange without losing its heart or its sense of wonder' Tom Perrotta, bestselling author of The Leftovers. 'I tore through the luminous pages of Edgar & Lucy as if possessed... What this book has to say about love and truth will stay with me for a very, very long time' Sophie McManus, bestselling author of The Unfortunates. 'This tale exerts a fiendish grip on the reader' Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. 'Brings to mind J.D. Salinger, Lorrie Moore, Karen Russell, even James Joyce. Edgar & Lucy will make you feel things you haven't felt in ages' Daniel Torday, author of The Last Flight of Poxl West. 'This otherworldly tale will haunt you' People.