Ties (Paperback)

I know you’re ashamed to say: look, I was married on October 11th, 1962, at twenty-two; I said “I do” in front of the priest in a church in the Stella neighborhood, and I did it for love, nothing forced me into it; look, I have certain responsibilities, and if you people don’t know what it means to have responsibilities you’re petty. I know, believe me, I know. But whether you like it or not, the fact remains: I am your wife and you are my husband.

They married young. They were in love and desired independence. But as middle-age and family obligations set in, their marital vows lost meaning. When he left, she felt gripped by rage. He moved to Rome and met a younger woman. She stayed with the kids in Naples, a city from which she felt a growing estrangement. But the inescapable ties that bind us can be tenacious, stronger even than both the wounds inflicted by abandonment and the desire for freedom. Can betrayal ever be swept under the carpet?

A powerful short novel about the ties that bind, and mark us indelibly.

Domenico Starnone is an Italian writer, screenwriter and journalist. He was born in Naples and lives in Rome. He is the author of thirteen works of fiction, including First Execution (Via Gemito), winner of Italy's most prestigious literary prize, the Strega.  Ties is translated by Jhumpa Lahiri, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Interpreter of Maladies, among other works.

‘Ties is an outstanding accomplishment. While only 150 pages long, it has the heft of a novel three times that length, packed as it is with insight and wisdom.’ The Times

‘A superlative novel, Ties offers an x-ray image both of love that is love in name only and of destruction, specifically a home torn apart by something that at first seems to be a tornado but turns out to be Starnone's brilliant writing.’  Il Giornale