Books
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Alice's Smorfia
Alice is 47 years old and has a very troubled life, but she has great strength of spirit, full of life, love, and a desire for change. She is like her beloved city, Naples: conquered, but never tamed. And, like Naples, she will succeed in rising again, starting also from that touch of esotericism (revelatory dreams, the Smorfia numbers, the folkloristic figures) that are one of the characteristics that characterize the Neapolitan people. Marco/Scarlet conceived this story by drawing numbers from a bingo game. The result is a novel as enjoyable as a musical fairy tale, full of twists, imaginative and delirious solutions, comical ideas, in which a colorful chorus of women sings about the difficulties of relationships with their own mothers and children, with men, with other women friends or rivals, and with society as a whole. Not without reflecting, through the folds of a bitter smile, on serious issues such as gender violence, rooted in the chauvinism so often enacted by women themselves, or the extortion that has suffocated the resources and productivity of large cities like Naples. Carlo Alfaro
Blu Parthenope
In a metropolis of a thousand colors and a thousand differences, modernity and tradition clash, playing a game of perpetual stalemate. We are in Naples, a city loved and hated by those who breathe in its brazen beauty, overshadowed by the daily abuses inflicted (and self-inflicted) by its inhabitants. It is not easy to live in this schizophrenic metropolis, torn between the seductions of the advancing new and that archaic heart that remains clinging to customs, or to the Greek fatalism of the Neapolitans. Those sensitive enough to sense this irreparable rift, camouflaged in the confusion of city life, will find themselves, like the protagonist of Blu Partenope, unable to find peace or a role in a world that marginalizes her even within her family, branding her as "different." In reality, Blu truly is different, starting with her own name, as original as it is symbolic, or in her strenuous defense of her dignity, or in the secret story of her origins that she unknowingly carries with her. With brilliant, caustic, yet far from superficial writing, Marco Iannaccone/Scarlet Lovejoy draws the reader into the grotesque misadventures of his heroine, surrounded by a plethora of unconventional characters and surreal situations worthy of Almodóvar's visionary neuroses. With lightness, vivacity, and irony, Blu tells his story to readers, eliciting bittersweet laughter that entertains and provokes reflection, as only a sincere love letter to one's hometown can.
The Magnolia Tree
Demetra is a modern-day forty-five-year-old, torn between her dream of realizing her talent as a writer and the burdens of her home, her land, and her troubled family: her complicated interactions with a strong-willed, attention-hungry mother, a greedy brother and sister-in-law, and a sister victim of image-obsessed behavior. Completing the picture is her difficult relationship with her longtime ex-boyfriend, Ettore, and her overbearing mother, Endora. Marco Iannaccone returns with a new novel, employing his unmistakable, humorous, and surreal style, which highlights his acquired stylistic maturity. Among other things, the author addresses important themes that forcefully emerge beneath a simple and direct narrative: the defense of the Earth, respect for diversity, the ruthless world of work, the founding values of family, and recognizing ourselves as human in the mirror of others. And it also discusses writing, with the author exploring, through the protagonist, his own literature. A book to read in one sitting, capable of leaving you amazed and thrilled with every twist, right up to the moving and unexpected ending. Demeter, and all the other characters in this vivid fresco, will enter your heart and sing you the most beautiful melody: the joy of being in the world and the duty to be happy in it.
The Sibyls Revealed
Like the cards of an ancient divinatory art, the captivating characters of this novel appear. Lara is a woman in her late 50s, a talented photographer, a widow and mother of a teenager, Daria, with two elderly parents and all the problems women face in today's society, where bullying and cynicism replace respect for others. Around her family is a vibrant network of voices: her best friend Ambra, desperately seeking a place in the sun; her daughter's faithful classmate Amanda; Professor Galante, rigid in his secrets; the wicked Denise; Elvira, desperate to recapture her vanished youth; and many other characters whose life stories create an unforgettable mosaic of color. The ironic style, which uses paradox to make you laugh while denouncing bitter reflections on today's society teetering on cultural and social decay, will have you reading in one sitting a novel that also takes on a detective twist to add suspense to a story seasoned with the notes of a quality soundtrack.
The sky above Naples
Naples, 2020: a group of people embarks on an experimental flight in a plane powered by solar panels. Eight people join the group: Luna, a forty-year-old with a disastrous love story; Irma, a stalker-like student in love with a boy her own age; Samuel, a boy with an obsessive, ultra-Catholic mother; Isadora, a sixty-year-old struggling with her daughter-in-law; Roxy the Magician, a fortune teller in midlife crisis and deep in debt; Loris, a singer struggling to adapt to a stereotypical music industry; Morgana, a teenager who brings bad luck; and Tancredi, a grandfather victimized by his grandchildren's poor education. Added to these characters are two flight attendants: Eva, a mysterious, impatient stewardess who is afraid of flying, and Bruna, full of enthusiasm and always with a smile plastered on her face. At the heart of the narrative is the desire to start over in a society like today's, which increasingly pushes toward the most abject conformism. The characters, diverse yet similar in their desire to assert their uniqueness, navigate the intricate maze of the city of Naples, with its contradictions and nuances. This almost initiatory journey is marked by constant hilarity, manifested through the everyday slang of its protagonists, whose stories gradually unfold through the numerous dialogues that abound in the text. Each of the characters will depart, leaving a personal issue unresolved. But, against all odds, something will happen that will upend everyone's lives.
Tomorrow is not another day
Asia, on the threshold of her final exams, opens up about her teenage anxieties, her fears, her adventures with Mary, her best friend, and Elisa, her histrionic aunt, but above all, about school: from the Carnival ball to the end-of-year trip, from her feuds with her sworn enemy Vittoria, to her crush on Professor La Rissa, a Clark Gable lookalike, to the absurd persecution of her Italian teacher, her rival in love. Through revelations, secrets, and twists, Asia doesn't hesitate to fight against everything and everyone to make her dreams come true.