{"product_id":"9781590176221","title":"The Skin","description":"This is the first unexpurgated English edition of Curzio Malaparte’s legendary work \u003ci\u003eThe Skin\u003c\/i\u003e. The book begins in 1943, with Allied forces cementing their grip on the devastated city of Naples. The sometime Fascist and ever-resourceful Curzio Malaparte is working with the Americans as a liaison officer. He looks after Colonel Jack Hamilton, “a Christian gentleman . . . an American in the noblest sense of the word,” who speaks French and cites the classics and holds his nose as the two men tour the squalid streets of a city in ruins where liberation is only another word for desperation. Veterans of the disbanded Italian army beg for work. A rare specimen from the city’s famous aquarium is served up at a ceremonial dinner for high Allied officers. Prostitution is rampant. The smell of death is everywhere.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSubtle, cynical, evasive, manipulative, unnerving, always astonishing, Malaparte is a supreme artist of the unreliable, both the product and the prophet of a world gone rotten to the core.","brand":"Curzio Malaparte","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback Trade paperback (US)","offer_id":45895141261524,"sku":"9781590176221","price":25.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1000\/9208\/files\/BNCImageAPI_760cb669-e8b2-4326-85f5-893b792a1f56.jpg?v=1732405246","url":"https:\/\/penguinshop.ca\/products\/9781590176221","provider":"Penguin Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}