Sun and Other Stars

From Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award-winning writer Brigid Pasulka comes a charming and compulsively readable modern day fable of one misanthropes journey from darkness into the lighttold by one of the most radiantly talented new voices in fiction.In the seaside town of San Benedetto, soccer (or calcio) is more than just a sport: its an obsession. Twenty-two-year-old Etto, however, couldnt care less about soccer. His beloved twin brother Luca, a rising soccer star, died tragically in a motorcycle accident, and their Californian mother, unable to cope with her grief, drowned herself on the anniversary of Lucas death. This has left Etto alone to tend the butcher shopwhere his father barely seems to take in his presence and entrusts him with only the most basic tasks. But then Yuri Fil, a Ukrainian soccer star who Ettos father idolizes, takes refuge from the paparazzi in a nearby villa, and Etto accidentally falls into Yuri's orbitand that of Yuris beautiful and tough sister, Zhuki. Under their influence, he begins to learn a few life lessons: that the game of soccer might not be a total waste of time, that he might not in fact be a total loserand that San Benedetto, his father, love, and life itself might have more to offer him than he would have ever believed possible.