Children can be cruel, and children can love as passionately and obsessively as adults. These two observations combine, igniting the imagination of Italy's greatest contemporary novelist and producing a seemingly candid novel that belies remarkable psychological depths and infinite degrees of enchantment.

Imagine a child, a daydreamer, one of those boys who is always gazing out windows. His adoring grandmother, busy in the kitchen, keeps an eye on him. The child stares at the building opposite, watching a black-haired girl as she dances recklessly on her balcony. He is in love. And a love like this can push a child to extremes. He can become an explorer or a cabin boy, a cowboy or castaway; he can fight duels to the death, or even master unfamiliar languages. His grandmother has told him about the entrance to the underworld, and he knows the story of Orpheus's failed rescue mission. He could do better, he thinks; he wouldn't fail to bring that dark-haired up from the underground if she were dead, and it only he had the chance.

A short, sharp, perfectly styled and unforgettable novel about love, desire, memory, and death by the Strega Prize-winning Italian author of Ties and International Booker Prize-longlisted author of The House on Via Gemito.