Emmaus is a short, haunting philosophical novel by Alessandro Barrico (Silk) about the friendship of four good Catholic boys who make up a popular church band and volunteer at a poor people's hospital. Red-haired, sexually aware Bobby isn't afraid to experiment with drugs. Reserved Luca, the nameless narrator's best friend, has a mortally ill father and a family that eats in silence. The Saint has a faint beard, says grace before meals and doesn't exclude the priesthood as a vocation.
Each in his own way is fascinated by Andre, a free-spirited girl whom they see in a compromising position with another boy in his car. Andre was born at the same moment her sister drowned in the backyard pool, and, 14 years later, Andre jumped off a bridge and survived. Barrico begins the story with the death of Andre's father, then loops back to the beginning and takes 90 pages to return to the scene in the prologue and repeat it, this time with the reader knowing all the characters involved.
Baricco's sentences are elegant and stately, a profound meditation on how little we know each other and how we normalize the tragic.
Vulnerable, unwary, believing in goodness, these four inexperienced boys with very deep secrets are sideswiped by the girl who drives them all crazy, fracturing their friendship. Now she's pregnant, and the finger of fatherhood points at one of them. Out of that possible paternity will come drug addiction, a suicide, a homicide and the painful wisdom about life that hits so hard when you're 18. --Nick DiMartino, Nicks Picks, University Bookstore, Seattle