In Trust, National Book Award-shortlisted author Domenico Starnone (Trick; Ties) provides a sharp and unsettling exploration of the dread and tension that undergirds passion. High school teacher Pietro is embroiled in a fervent and volatile relationship with his former student, the brilliant and unpredictable Teresa. Eager to bind the two of them together forever, Teresa proposes that they tell each other their worst secrets. Not long after doing so, they break up and Pietro meets someone new. As the years go by and Pietro marries, has children and rises in academic fame, his paranoia that Teresa will share his terrible secret with the world reaches unmanageable heights, particularly when Teresa is invited by his daughter to speak at a ceremony in his honor.
Pulsating with dread, Trust invites readers into the mind of a man anticipating a drastic reckoning. The slow-burn plot earns its suspense through the intricately connected and constantly shifting relations of power between the novel's two leads. Pietro's conversational first-person narration proves as engrossing as it is cringe-worthy and eye-roll-inducing in its misogyny and narcissism. His mesmeric rise in fame creates an ever-heightening fear of falling for the character and for readers, who, like Teresa, will become invested in Pietro despite their better judgment. Darkly humorous at times and emotionally cutting at others, Pietro's sections of the novel are as fascinating as they are quietly disturbing. But it is the brief sections from his daughter's and Teresa's perspectives that bring Pietro's story into sharp relief, allowing for an ending that is both menacing and cathartic. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor