Giorgio Faletti
Io Uccido

Take a book by Joe R. Lansdale, for example "The Girl With the Steel Heart" (Fanucci Editore, Rome, 2007); open it to any page, at random; read a couple of consecutive sentences, the first ones that catch your eye.

"As for the rest, I have enough worries. I've even started counting objects again. Not always, but there are eighteen thousand little spots on your ceiling…"

See, these three simple sentences can be devoured as easily as laughing through the 600-plus pages of Faletti's book, a work we could easily call trash if it weren't that today trash has reached a decent value.

PS This book has haunted me since it was published. For years I've seen it everywhere, damn it, with its crappy red and white cover. I even saw it in Norway (there, however, the cover was a bit black as well).
The other day, with G, I saw it for the millionth time at the rest stop and — it was also on sale — I decided it was time to end it: I bought it.
The first two pages were enough for me to decide to break a multi-year silence on reviews. Because this lousy book has also had decent success, a heck of a success actually. And yet it's really pathetic, indeed.