I Want to Watch

A deeply dark and violent novel of existential despair, by one of Italy’s leading young writers.

In an apartment in Italy, a man and a little girl are playing hide and seek. Indulgently he gives up the search, and she emerges from her hiding place with a happy squeal. The man pulls a startled face; the loser of the game. The girl hurls herself at him, hugging his waist. He kneels down and she throws her arms around him, as he kisses her forehead and the top of her head. He strokes her back and wraps his arms around her. Then, coldly, clinically and expertly, he breaks her neck . . .

David Heller is a lawyer who has made a reputation as an imaginative, astute and highly successful defender of his clients — many of whom are clearly guilty. Celeste is a schoolgirl, barely sixteen, who is using her spare time to earn money as a prostitute, hanging out along the beach near her home. One afternoon, she witnesses a man leaving a rucksack by one of the fishing boats moored along the shore. Curious, she decides to follow him. As he enters his building, she hears the porter greet him by name: “You are lucky, Avvocato Heller . . .”

I Want to Watch is a gripping story of desire and despair that documents the bizarre and dangerous association between lawyer and schoolgirl. Written in spare, unflinching, suggestive prose, this remarkable novel recalls Kafka and Camus as much as it does the Brett Easton Ellis of American Psycho.