“Lucid on love, flawless on literature” – Il Sole 24 Ore

“Exquisite symphony of feelings, talking about love in a new way: Ricci saves feelings
from the hypocrisy of the “already said” and “already known”- Tuttolibri

“Cruel, out of sync, lucid and obsessive: this is love in time of Covid” – Corriere della Sera

“Luca Ricci is the best marriage expert”- Telegraph Avenue

A man walks through Rome in days of Lockdown. The streets are empty and silent, except for the wail of sirens. The man is wearing a facemask. As he walks, he meets a woman just like him, another wanderer in despair, and despite the pandemic – maybe even because of the pandemic – desire gets the better of them.

But what happens when desire loses its transgressive and adventurous side, for one of them, and turns into love?

And how come the man doesn’t want to take off his mask?

Extreme situations call for extreme responses, this is the powerful message Luca Ricci offers in this unique short story, bringing our present experiences into literature.

Published in the ebook series “gli Squali” (The Sharks), the brainchild of Elisabetta Sgarbi of “La nave di Teseo”: short stories and novellas, quick reads that leave a big impression, by some of the publisher’s greatest authors (alongside Luca Ricci: Pulitzer Prize winners Richard Powers and Michael Cunningham, Petros Markaris, Joyce Carol Oates, Valeria Parrella, Giorgio Scerbanenco, Elfriede Jelinek). A series with shades of noir, that brings the best of Italian and international literature