“At the heart of Ties, Trick, and Trust stand celebrated men—the groundbreaking TV producer, the renowned artist, the revolutionary man of letters—who all have nearly invisible wives and marriages with a profound silence at their core... the wives can’t win. They come across as drudges and unsexed harpies because they face the work of life. The men’s lust for adoration leads to a shattering disillusionment when the glow of devotion wanes, when they can’t think of themselves as great men anymore. But Starnone pushes their downfalls into the realm of existential crisis: he interrogates the system of a family, the roles his characters feel forced to act out on both sides. His women are wrathful shades, speaking on the literal margins of the books, like the chorus pronouncing judgment. Starnone gives them the last word, but it’s a wail into the abyss. With a few deft strokes of his concentrated prose, he tears down the curtains, blinding his audience with daylight.”
Read the full review in the Los Angeles Review of Books.
