Il libro d'esordio che nel 1995 ha svelato al pubblico americano Charles D'Ambrosio, immediatamente considerato uno dei migliori scrittori della sua generazione. Sette lunghi racconti sul dolore e la speranza, lo smarrimento e la scoperta di sé, popolati di bambini troppo saggi e adulti allo sbando, morti ingiuste e attimi di redenzione. Ogni pagina ha il dono della grazia, ed è impossibile non restarne incantati.

Il suo vero nome

« Avec trois fois rien, Charles D'Ambrosio a le don de nous déchirer le cœur. »  
Eric Neuhoff
À travers cet éblouissant recueil de nouvelles, ce sont les mystères familiaux qui sont offerts au lecteur à travers une palette de relations complexes et de sentiments troubles. 
De la relation entre un père et son fils schizophrène au périple destructeur d'un couple en quête de recommencement, ces histoires de famille, d'amour et d'amitié capturent ce moment crucial où tout prend sens. Graves ou légères, ces bribes d'existence sont autant de petits chefs-d'œuvre dont l'atmosphère, le style et les personnages possèdent une densité inouïe.
Tout le talent de l'auteur, c'est d'emporter l'adhésion par la force et la beauté de son écriture alors que ses personnages sont confrontés aux ténèbres et à sa vision plutôt pessimiste des rapports humains.

Le musée des poissons morts

“In the fall, I went for walks and brought home bones. The best bones weren’t on trails—deer and moose don’t die conveniently—and soon I was wandering so far into the woods that I needed a map and compass to find my way home. When winter came and snow blew into the mountains, burying the bones, I continued to spend my days and often my nights in the woods. I vaguely understood that I was doing this because I could no longer think; I found relief in walking up hills. When the night temperatures dropped below zero, I felt visited by necessity, a baseline purpose, and I walked for miles, my only objective to remain upright, keep moving, preserve warmth. When I was lost, I told myself stories . . .”So Charles D’Ambrosio recounted his life in Philipsburg, Montana, the genesis of the brilliant stories collected here, six of which originally appeared in The New Yorker. Each of these eight burnished, terrifying, masterfully crafted stories is set against a landscape that is both deeply American and unmistakably universal. A son confronts his father’s madness and his own hunger for connection on a misguided hike in the Pacific Northwest. A screenwriter fights for his sanity in the bleak corridors of a Manhattan psych ward while lusting after a ballerina who sets herself ablaze. A Thanksgiving hunting trip in Northern Michigan becomes the scene of a haunting reckoning with marital infidelity and desperation. And in the magnificent title story, carpenters building sets for a porn movie drift dreamily beneath a surface of sexual tension toward a racial violence they will never fully comprehend. Taking place in remote cabins, asylums, Indian reservations, the backloads of Iowa and the streets of Seattle, this collection of stories, as muscular and challenging as the best novels, is about people who have been orphaned, who have lost connection, and who have exhausted the ability to generate meaning in their lives. Yet in the midst of lacerating difficulty, the sensibility at work in these fictions boldly insists on the enduring power of love. D’Ambrosio conjures a world that is fearfully inhospitable, darkly humorous, and touched by glory; here are characters, tested by every kind of failure, who struggle to remain human, whose lives have been sharpened rather than numbed by adversity, whose apprehension of truth and beauty has been deepened rather than defeated by their troubles. Many writers speak of the abyss. Charles D’Ambrosio writes as if he is inside of it, gazing upward, and the gaze itself is redemptive, a great yearning ache, poignant and wondrous, equal parts grit and grace.

Le Musée Des Poissons Morts

Che siano falegnami sul set di un film porno, puntigliosi riparatori di macchine da scrivere, truffatori tossicodipendenti dallo sguardo pietoso, ragazzini costretti a crescere in fretta o sceneggiatori di successo finiti in un ospedale psichiatrico, i personaggi di questi otto racconti lottano per superare il trauma di un abbandono o di una violenza, per comprendere la deriva delle persone amate, per mantenere la propria umanità in un'America marginale e dolente, provinciale e uggiosa. La scrittura accurata e potente di D'Ambrosio - autore schivo e poco prolifico, ma acclamato dalla critica americana come una delle rivelazioni degli ultimi anni - li riscatta, descrivendo l'insoddisfazione personale di ciascuno come qualcosa da cui smettere di fuggire, e regalandoci un capolavoro dal fascino oscuro dal quale, come ha scritto il Seattle Times, « è quasi impossibile staccare gli occhi ».

Il suo vero nome

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