Author(s): Veronica Raimo

Novel | Translated fiction | Italy | 2024 International Booker Prize long list

The 100,000 copy Italian bestseller for fans of Rachel Cusk and Deborah Levy

Vero has grown up in Rome with her eccentric family: an omnipresent mother who is devoted to her own anxiety, a father ruled by hygienic and architectural obsessions, and a precocious genius brother at the centre of their attention.

As she becomes an adult, Vero's need to strike out on her own leads her into bizarre and comical situations: she tries (and fails) to run away to Paris at the age of fifteen; she moves into an unwitting older boyfriend's house after they have been together for less than a week; and she sets up a fraudulent (and wildly successful) street clothing stall to raise funds to go to Mexico.

Most of all, she falls in love - repeatedly, dramatically, and often with the most unlikely and inappropriate of candidates. As she continues to plot escapades and her mother's relentless tracking methods and guilt-tripping mastery thwart her at every turn, it is no wonder that Vero becomes a writer - and a liar - inventing stories in a bid for her own sanity.

Narrated in a voice as wryly ironic as it is warm and affectionate, Lost on Me seductively explores the slippery relationship between deceitfulness and creativity (beginning with Vero's first artistic achievement: a painting she steals from a school classmate and successfully claims as her own).

Deceptively simple, its tenderness offset by moments of cool brutality, Lost on Me is a masterwork of human observation.

Review: I fell head over heels in love with Lost on Me. What a thrillingly original voice! Raimo writes with a tender brutality that is simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking * Monica Ali, author of Love Marriage *
A uproariously funny portrait of an unconventional family from a writer who knows the sliver of ice in the heart as well as she knows love. This deliciously enjoyable novel is a true original and one to savour -- Katherine Heiny
When the book you start reading is immediately hilarious and deeply disturbing, you know you're onto something special. Lost on Me is that book -- Roddy Doyle
Is it possible, today, to completely reinvent auto-fiction? For Veronica Raimo it clearly is. Get ready to talk about this book for a long, long time -- Paolo Giordano, author of The Solitude of Prime Numbers
This book made me want to clear my calendar and read everything of Raimo's I could get my hands on. Incisive, engrossing, and deeply funny -- Julia May Jonas, author of Vladimir
Like a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, Veronica Raimo mocks the absurdities of her family life as well as tries to reconcile her own ambiguous feelings. A bold, provocative, and original book -- Lily Tuck, author of Sisters
A desecrating and tender portrait of family that reels us in from the very first lines * Io Donna: Il Corriere della Sera *
Many pages in this novel are so intense and unscrupulous that one feels the apprehension of being caught spying in a stranger's mailbox * Esquire Italia *
Reading this novel is a blast ... Many of the pages are jellyfish stings: they burn on and on -- Claudia Durastanti, author of Strangers I Know
Veronica Raimo is a stupendous comedian * La Stampa *
A story that nails us down with a powerful first-person voice, clear and exhilarating. * Marie Claire Italia *
With its stellar voice, Raimo's inquisitive and vulnerable novel proves tough to put down * Publishers Weekly *
Lost on Me is the naughty grandson of Natalia Ginzburg's Family Lexicon ... Raimo has tapped the novelistic potential of her affections and has transformed them into comedy. The result deserves all of the praise flaunted on the cover * Il Corriere della Sera *
Filled with humour and neuroses ... a witty and complex portrait of a woman becoming herself * Kirkus *
Lost on Me was anything but; I was utterly seduced by this wry and fearless novel featuring the unforgettable voice of Vero, a young woman with a sharp sense of humour and a splendid eye for the absurd -- Elizabeth McKenzie, author of The Dog of the North

Author Biography: Veronica Raimo is the author of four novels, the most recent of which, Lost On Me (Niente di Vero) was shortlisted for the Premio Strega Prize and won the Strega Giovani Prize and the Viareggio Repaci Prize. She contributes cultural articles to various Italian publications, and her translations into Italian include works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Octavia E. Butler, Ray Bradbury and Ursula K. Le Guin. She lives in Rome.