The House on Via Gemito

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE 

A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 

The modest apartment on Via Gemito smells of paint and white spirit. The furniture is pushed up against the wall to create a make-shift studio, and drying canvases must be moved off the beds each night. 

Federí, a railway clerk, is convinced that if he didn’t have a family to feed, he’d be a world-famous painter. Talented, ambitious, and frustrated, his life is marked by bitter disappointment. His long-suffering wife and their four children bear the brunt. Years later, his first-born son will tell the story of a man he spent his whole life trying not to resemble. 

Narrated against the background of a Naples still scarred by WWII, The House on Via Gemito is a sweeping family drama by one of Italy's most acclaimed and beloved novelists. 

“Starnone uses language the way a great painter works with color.”—Jhumpa Lahiri