Three O'Clock in the Morning

November 1, 2020
Having been diagnosed with epilepsy, 18-year-old Antonio and his father travel from their Italian home to Marseille for a consultation with a specialist, who pronounces Antonio cured if he can pass a final test: he must stay awake for 48 hours. Despite Antonio's demurral, his father elects to stay awake with him, and together the two contrive a schedule of sorts that, among other things, will take them to a late-night jazz club, where--to Antonio's delight--his father plays the piano. The two then go to a party where Antonio loses his virginity to his 37-year-old hostess. Despite the importance of these events, it is the conversations between son and father that are the real substance of this slender novel from Italy, for, as Antonio thinks, "I had never really talked to my father." Happily, their subsequent conversations are enlightening for both of them. Antonio tells the story in his own unadorned first-person voice from his perspective as a 51-year-old adult, a fact that adds wisdom to this absorbing novel of filial bonding.

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Starred review from December 7, 2020
Former Italian senator and prosecutor Carofiglio (A Fine Line) takes a break from his Guido Guerrieri crime series with this poignant and moving father/son story. Antonio, an Italian 18-year-old whose parents are separated, is largely estranged from his father; he suffers bouts of epilepsy and, having endured years of failed treatments, is told by a specialist in Marseilles that he may be able to be cured. First, though, the doctor must test how Antonio’s brain reacts to stress. To that end, Antonio is ordered to not sleep for two days, and he spends the 48 hours awake in the city, accompanied by his father. He asks his dad about a scar, which leads to a how-I-met-your-mother story, and a dazzling episode, set in a jazz club, has Antonio marveling at his father playing piano on stage. Then the pair talk about mathematics and magical thinking, and after they visit a porno shop his father recounts visiting a brothel. They eventually get invited to a party where Antonio has a transformative experience. The father and son’s odyssey through the gritty streets of Marseilles is laced with many memorable details, such as the single-file pack of dogs that reminds Antonio of the Abbey Road cover, and Carofiglio shines with vivid descriptions of Antonio’s epilepsy fits (“I had a bedspread that was light blue, almost sky blue. All at once that pale, relaxing colour grew threatening...and went right through me with a violence that was unreal”). Antonio’s catalog of intimate experiences, whether painful, pleasurable, or bittersweet, make for an enchanting coming-of-age tale. Agent: David Forrer, InkWell Management.

January 15, 2021
A father and son explore Marseilles without sleep. This is a novel of a specific time and place that makes you sorry and even a little melancholy to leave that time and place behind. The time is 1983. The place is the grimy but lovely French port city of Marseille. Here we find a father and his 18-year-old son, Antonio, passing, by doctor's orders, two sleepless nights as they wait to see if Antonio's epilepsy has subsided. Like many fathers and sons, they have left much unsaid over the years: regrets, recriminations, affections, secrets. In language plain and graceful, presented in a svelte translation from the Italian by Curtis, Carofiglio quietly lays their souls bare in allowing them to see each other as human beings for the first time. They walk through sketchy neighborhoods, they indulge in wine and coffee, they see some jazz, they swim in the sea, and they visit a bohemian party. Their primary task is simple: Don't fall asleep. Instead they walk and they talk--about love, about mathematics (Dad's speciality), about food, about philosophy, about life. Slowly, without fanfare, they reveal themselves. Here's Antonio, near the end of their odyssey: "Two nights without sleep weaken you, slow down your reflexes, blur your vision, but they give you a very subtle, precise sense of what really matters." That subtle precision informs every page, as does a deceptive simplicity laden with all that happens when you're not paying attention. The novel takes place in a sort of eternal present, a time when all senses are awake. The title comes from a quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning." Here those dark nights arrive with shimmering, unforced beauty, filling the pages with jagged moonlight like the finest neorealist film. A journey by foot: crisp, lean, yet quietly mournful.

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