Two Reviews of the Italian version of THE RAPIST

Hi folks,

Just received these reviews of the Italian version of THE RAPIST.

Review by Katia Montanari

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Author: Les Edgerton

Translation: Annarita Guarnieri

Publisher: Meridiano Zero

Genre: Romance

Pages: 116

Year of publication: 2019

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Synopsis. Forget the hard-boiled, forget the noir, forget everything you think you know about this genre. With a disdainful grin "The Rapist" gets rid of every canonical element and presents something that aspires to be much more than what a single genre can offer. A controlled testimony of misanthropy and disappointment that recalls Dostoevsky's "Memoirs from the Underground". But while the protagonist of the work of the great Russian author feeds on anger, Edgerton's is nourished by a horrible narcissism and an inhuman and bestial nature that peeps out like a stalker through his eloquent language and his grandiose ideas. In this novel based not so much on plot as on narration, Edgerton guides us in the mind of Truman Pinter and leaves us there, alone, to look after ourselves and find the road that will take us out of the darkness. How much of what Truman says we can dismiss as the delusions of a sick mind? And how many times do we have to stop and listen, looking for a glimmer of truth?

Review

"The Rapist" is an excellent novel, partly provocative, sometimes disturbing, which cannot leave you indifferent. The language chosen by the author is highly sought after, almost courtly, deliberately interrupted by outbursts of raw vulgarity that are perceived as high-pitched screams. Truman, the protagonist, tells his story in the first person.

He is a prisoner, sentenced to death for rape and murder waiting for execution on death row. He appears as a pedantic, cultured, wealthy man, lacking in empathy who has an altered and totally personal vision of life and values.

Many things are considered legitimate or not based on our morality and emotion but they would appear differently if analyzed from a purely rational point of view.

His arguments concerning rape, life, death and marriage are extreme and debatable, but even in the passages in which his thought seems delirious, a clear awareness can be seen that gives strength to the true communicative intent of the author.

Through some rhetorical figures and fitting dialogues you will be drawn into the deep abysses of a lucid madness, to the secrets hidden in Truman's unconscious and you will arrive, almost without realizing it, in a strong and meaningful ending.

Les Edgerton

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Les Edgerton was born in Odessa, Texas. He served for four years in the United States Navy. Later, he was sentenced to two and a few months for second-degree burglary. Four years after he was released from prison, he attended Indiana University in South Bend, where he was elected President of the student body and was a sports editor for the campus newspaper. He later earned an MFA in writing at Vermont College. He writes short stories, articles, essays, novels and screenplays. Edgerton's works have competed for the Pushcart Award, O. Henry Award, Edgar Allan Poe Award (short story category), Jesse Jones Award, PEN / Faulkner Award, the Derringer Award, and the Violet Crown Book Award.

Les Edgerton - The Rapist

Cecilia | 6 July, 2019

Odoya Publisher Zero Meridian / Out of Series 
Year 2019 
Genre noir 
120 pages - paperback and epub 
Translation by Annarita Guarnieri

"Yes it caused me. Yes she drowned. Yes I could have saved her. No I didn't try to do it "
You are can be depraved and crazy. Violent and misogynistic. Criminals and rapists. Human nature is fallacious due to genetic programming but one cannot be all this and think also clearly to be right, to have grandiose ideas. Or maybe yes because everything is played on morality. And when one is really deprived of it then all the conventions and the judgments fall together, because one can judge a person who makes a mistake not a monster that feeds on his own degenerations.

Who is Truman Pinter? He himself tells us this in a long narrative where the action takes place mainly in the memories of an exalted psychopath who explains his nature never daring to give himself perverse, but only talking about plans. Pinter always has a plan that he first elaborates mentally and then tries to actually put it into practice. Sometimes it fails but when it does it explains it and justifies it by appealing to its own nature and instincts. Kidnap women and make cannon fodder. And even when he is captured and the people of his country, as well as hanging him, he would like to castrate him first so that he can send him to the other world, however crippled, he laughs at us. Truman is angry but also a narcissist and in prison he speaks and tells,

The Rapist can be understood only by reading it from the first to the last page because the term "unsettling" only partially makes what readers find themselves understanding page after page. It is an indefinable novel because it cannot be cataloged in any specific genre. It has echoes of madness of its own and a storyline that when you think it can make you remember another story and another story turns suddenly and changes register. For lovers of long literary monologues it can immediately appear really interesting but after the first enthusiasm of the initial chapters fully understand that the story in pictures is something that goes beyond the same story to lead to a work of introspection that leaves no quiet at all. Reading The Rapist is a real experience where Edgerton seems to have tried one chapter after another without having any initial canvas and at times even carelessly bothering the reader. The pages flow to the bitter end until the same author is no longer able to hold up the monster he created and concludes the story before Truman Pinter engages himself. The result is a hallucinatory novel, something never seen before and that must be read absolutely because even readers sometimes need to close a book thinking that maybe they could not understand everything but that is fine. The pages flow to the bitter end until the same author is no longer able to hold up the monster he created and concludes the story before Truman Pinter engages himself. The result is a hallucinatory novel, something never seen before and that must be read absolutely because even readers sometimes need to close a book thinking that maybe they could not understand everything but that is fine. The pages flow to the bitter end until the same author is no longer able to hold up the monster he created and concludes the story before Truman Pinter engages himself. The result is a hallucinatory novel, something never seen before and that must be read absolutely because even readers sometimes need to close a book thinking that maybe they could not understand everything but that is fine.

Antonia del Sambro

The writer: 
Les Edgerton grew up in Texas and Indiana, serving two years in the Pendleton penitentiary during the 1960s for burglary. The sentence is the result of a plea bargain that has reduced dozens of thefts to a single charge, an armed robbery and a drug dealing accusation. Before this "small problem" Les served for four years in the US Navy as a cryptographer. After obtaining conditional release from Pendleton, Edgerton received his bachelor's degree (with honors) from Indiana University.
Today he is a full-time writer and creative writing teacher. He has published eighteen books in a wide variety of forms: novels, short stories, essays, scripts and writing manuals. One of his most famous works is the Hooked essay: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Them Go. 
The book I prefer is his collection of short stories called Monday's Meal, which received a brilliant review by The New York Times in which Les is compared to Raymond Carver.