Chinese Boxes

Premio Letterario Francesco Alziator (2012)

«The Chinese Boxes» is a story set in the narrow streets of Chinatown in New York; seasons of the year and strange events happen and fade away in the stifling heat and under the heavy rain; neon signs blink over cheesy windows; a killer is on the loose. The mysteries are never revealed, the story seems like a set of Chinese boxes: when you open one, you find another sealed inside. Seven murders take place; the lives of the victims remain ambiguous, everyone has something to hide and hides it well. A man learns how to walk; a girl drives cross-country in search of something, finding something else: a kind of loving and a New York death. Apart from the central character, private eye Stuart Malone, there is an eccentric old aunt living in the wilds of Brooklyn amidst preposterous objects and ancient manuscripts and a weary lieutenant who waits impatiently for his retirement day, which is still three years away. Some of the events happen out a window overlooking Chinatown, others out another window over the Meatpacking district, and a few more out a third one in the rundown neighbourhood of Red Hook. It's the end of 1989, the beginning of 1990: a dangerous year. «The Chinese Boxes» is a story about a fortune cookie factory and the New York subway which, rumor has it, is haunted by vampires. Soti Triantafillou's novel is woven around Stuart Malone, a man chasing a lost dream. It is also a wandering through a city that is, above all, a state of mind.

*Full German translation available