The Performance

The story of a love triangle played out through mutual manipulationGiorgia was a talented actress before she abandoned her stage career and fell in love with Filippo. She settles into a life of quiet compromise—until one day she bumps into her old theater director, Mauro, who fans the acting flame back to life. But setting a restless soul on fire can be dangerous if she loses sight of the boundary between reality and fiction—and Giorgia collapses, ending up in a clinic. Filippo and Mauro find themselves both accomplices and adversaries, seduced by a dangerous game to heal and win back Giorgia: by writing the script for her perfect life. In this dazzling debut, Petrucci explores the ambiguous borders between love, possession, and control in clear, magnetic prose.Translated from Italian by Anne Milano Appel