Me and You
Reprising the childish perspective and sinister psychological freightedness of Ammaniti’s international best-seller I’m Not Scared (2002), this novel, already a best-seller in Italy, sees Ammaniti in familiar form. Its world is a narrow one, constrained by the perspective of antisocial Lorenzo Cumi and made up, for the most part, of only the cellar room he inhabits while his parents think he is on a trip with friends. Lorenzo, diagnosed at one point with narcissistic personality disorder, is delineated with sensitivity and skill. He is 14, uninterested in or incapable of connecting with people, and eager for a week’s solitary refuge. When his troubled half sister, Olivia, shows up, though, they are both forced, rather dramatically, to confront and perhaps begin to overcome their respective weaknesses and evasions. The pacing of the novel is odd and sometimes forced, and there is something a bit false and impoverished at its center, though that could charitably be seen as an authentic expression of the narrator’s sociopathic tendencies. Still, its sensational emotionalism and claustrophobic intensity make this an undeniably engaging (and quick) read. --Meg Kinney