Emmaus is a short, haunting philosophical novel by Alessandro Barrico (Silk) about the friendship of four good Catholic boys, untested believers negotiating their way through the tricky waters of adolescence. Together, they make up a popular church band and volunteer at a poor people's hospital emptying bags of urine. Red-haired, sexually aware Bobby isn't afraid to experiment with drugs. Reserved Luca, the 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. The fourth boy is the nameless narrator.
Each in his own way is fascinated by Andre, a free-spirited, sexually liberated girl their own age who likes older boys and whom they see in a compromising position with another boy in his car. They find out that Andre was born at the same moment her sister drowned in the backyard pool, and that 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.
The title derives from an episode in the New Testament after the crucifixion, where two disciples on the road to Emmaus are joined by a mysterious third, not realizing the risen Christ is walking with them. Baricco's sentences are elegant and stately, a profound meditation on how little we know each other and how we normalize the tragic. The four boys, believing in the strength of their friendship, play the reckless, flirtatious games of youth until the price of their games slaps them in the face, and the wheel of tragedy begins to turn.
Vulnerable, unwary, believing in goodness, these four inexperienced boys with very deep secrets from each other 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. Is he the father? If not, who is? 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
Shelf Talker: A friendship among four Italian Catholic boys is destroyed by the girl they all love.