The Rabbit Punch
On sale
27th February 2025
Price: £24.99
‘Beautifully restrained’
JHUMPA LAHIRI
‘Hypnotic . . . filled with unforgettable characters’
SANDRO VERONESI
It is a June morning in Milan when Sandro abandons his flat, his job and the increasingly unfulfilled promises of a stiflingly hostile city to return to his hometown of Rimini, on the Adriatic coast. His mother, Caterina, has been dead for a few years, but his father – headstrong, taciturn Nando – soldiers on in the same house of Sandro’s youth.
The two men could not be more different – Nando a former railway worker, Sandro a young professional in advertising – but they have one thing in common: their passion for winning. Nando and Caterina used to dance in amateur ballroom competitions up and down the Riviera – and they danced to win. Sandro inherited his obsession with success from them, but the stakes are a lot higher at the card table than on the dancefloor.
As the days and weeks go by and their forced cohabitation gently returns them to the old rhythms of a past life – sweet in its nostalgia but punctured by memories heavy with sorrow – it becomes clear that both Nando and Sandro are hiding difficult truths. Where does Nando disappear to every night, driving around Rimini in his battered car, his old dancing shoes hidden in the trunk? And what did Sandro leave in Milan – besides an empty flat and a broken heart?
JHUMPA LAHIRI
‘Hypnotic . . . filled with unforgettable characters’
SANDRO VERONESI
It is a June morning in Milan when Sandro abandons his flat, his job and the increasingly unfulfilled promises of a stiflingly hostile city to return to his hometown of Rimini, on the Adriatic coast. His mother, Caterina, has been dead for a few years, but his father – headstrong, taciturn Nando – soldiers on in the same house of Sandro’s youth.
The two men could not be more different – Nando a former railway worker, Sandro a young professional in advertising – but they have one thing in common: their passion for winning. Nando and Caterina used to dance in amateur ballroom competitions up and down the Riviera – and they danced to win. Sandro inherited his obsession with success from them, but the stakes are a lot higher at the card table than on the dancefloor.
As the days and weeks go by and their forced cohabitation gently returns them to the old rhythms of a past life – sweet in its nostalgia but punctured by memories heavy with sorrow – it becomes clear that both Nando and Sandro are hiding difficult truths. Where does Nando disappear to every night, driving around Rimini in his battered car, his old dancing shoes hidden in the trunk? And what did Sandro leave in Milan – besides an empty flat and a broken heart?
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Reviews
This beautifully restrained novel is built largely upon words exchanged between a father and his son. In paring back the elements, Missiroli says all there is to say about their differences, their devotion to one another, the frailties they share. I entered instantly into their private language and the piercing clarity of these pages, utterly absorbed
An intense, moving book - full of life, suspended between utter joy and pain, human errors and moments of pure redemption
For half a century the wintry charms of Rimini have been celebrated by the solitary voice of its most famous son, Federico Fellini. Now the arrival of Marco Missiroli has gifted us with a new perspective. Less dreamy and poetic, more embittered and down-to-earth - but equally hypnotic, and equally filled with unforgettable characters