Ten — Andrej Longo

The Mafia and the Ten Commandments meet in these interlinked short stories about ordinary people living in the underbelly of Naples

Uncovering the raw heart of the city, this collection tells the stories of ordinary people forced to make extraordinary compromises in a place permeated by crime. We encounter a son who finds that he is capable of a terrible act when faced with his mother's suffering "because someone had to do it," a girl whose only outlet for the horrors of an adult's abuse is to confide in a stuffed toy, an ancient nightclub singer whose ambition has led him to become a drug tester for a Mafia boss, and Ray-Ban who, during a night of mayhem with his friends, manages to steal the wrong car and pays dearly for it. Each comes to life with painful precision in the hands of Andrej Longo -- their fears, regrets, energy, and grace. In direct and sometimes brutally raw prose, he conjures a searing new vision of Naples. With the lightest of brush strokes, Longo builds a vivid portrait of a city, its people, and their dreams of escape.