Eleven years after the first edition, Guia Soncini rewrites her only novel. In eleven years, everything has changed: on television, in the newspapers, on our phone screens. And this story, too, is no longer the same. The only thing that remains unchanged is the author’s crystal-clear perspective on the present.
 

The longest-lasting marriages are those not based on romantic love, according to Elsa Tomei, who has been married to Vanni Gualandi for twenty-eight years. Close-knit, wealthy, and successful, Elsa and Vanni are a couple to admire in public and detest in private. She is the producer of the program most loved by Rai 3 viewers; he is the columnist for Italy’s most prestigious newspaper. Together, they run a formidable family business; they are among the few who still possess a treasure as valuable as reputation. But, upon closer inspection, even the Gualandis have something to hide. Like everyone else. Or more than anyone else? To begin with: do they have a single true friend among the guests gathered tonight to celebrate Vanni’s sixtieth birthday? Certainly not Fanny Montestrutto, a reformed real estate speculator and aspiring third Mrs. Gualandi. Nor Zoe Strada, Elsa’s former assistant, determined to match—perhaps even surpass—her ruthlessness. Between canapés and mini supplì, the hosts’ shame is played out for the guests’ amusement. During the party, their lies bounce from smartphone to smartphone, endlessly reproducible. Will their love withstand the blow? Whatever love means.