Cal Revely-Calder
End of the Affair
Ties
By Domenico Starnone (Translated by Jhumpa Lahiri
Europa Editions 144pp £9.99 order from our bookshop
It starts, in 1974, with a girl (it always starts with a girl). Aldo and Vanda, youngish Neapolitans, have been married for twelve years. They have two children, Sandro (nine) and Anna (five), and a fair income from Aldo’s university job; they go on family trips to campsites and beaches. They’re models of everyday life. But when Lidia (nineteen) enrols on Aldo’s ‘economics and business’ course, his head is turned and he walks out of the family home. He’s away for four years – and then he comes back to Vanda. Lidia vanishes. The marriage goes on. They’re still together today.
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