Quo Vadis, Baby?

Author Grazia Verasani

Translated by Taylor Corse and Juliann Vitullo

At first glance, Private Detective Giorgia Cantini is not a pretty sight as she sits at a bar, downing her fourth cocktail of the night, feeling moody and obnoxious. Brutally honest, she smokes too much, exercises too little, eats on the run, and — the cardinal sin for Italian women — is a messy housekeeper. Yet, despite all that, people trust her and are attracted to her as a confidant. Her stream of unhappy clients comes from the conventional middle-class and upper-middle-class confines of Bolognese families. While the Cantini Detective Agency mostly investigates the tangled affairs of unhappily married couples, Verasani exposes the hierarchies and prejudices of Italian “family culture” that often lead to tragic acts of violence against those who stray from domestic and sexual norms.

Bios

Taylor Corse is a professor emreitus of English at Arizona State University.

Juliann Vitullo is associate professor of Italian in the School of International Letters and Cultures at Arizona State University where she also served as associate director.


Praise for this book

This delicious novel is a genre all its own — Italian neorealism meets feminist noir. I can’t wait for more Verasani in English.

Sara Paretsky