Billed as a mystery, The Transaction, by Guglielmo D'Izzia, certainly is that. I don't know what it is that I read.

This book is heavy on atmosphere, which I usually adore. It just didn't seem to be in service of anything.

De Angelis is on his way to the far outreaches of Sicily to close a real estate deal, but the party whom he's to meet has been murdered. He finally reaches his destination, but is treated with scorn and suspicion — a real outsider.

I found the plot, such as it was, hard to follow. The inscrutability of the characters and the environment make the mystery seem impenetrable. As a reader, I also felt like an outsider; if it's a deliberate effect, it was taken too far. De Angelis's behavior and motives are also mysterious — he never invites me into the novel.

Commendably, the sense of heat and nausea are overwhelming. Our protagonist faints from the sun, and the discomfort is palpable. He focuses obsessively on food but has no appetite.

<blockquote>The two men men waste no time and throw themselves at the food, as if famished. They practically inhale it and pick through the bones like scavengers. They don't even bother wiping their mouths, which have reddened with sauce and collected bits of shredded meat. They are almost through with their food, and I haven't even started with mine yet. I gaze down at my plate — trying not to think about the barbaric, bordering on nauseating, scene unfolding before my eyes — and take a stab at it.

The meat itself is pretty tender, but the tomato sauce is so thick and oily that it has turned orange. A few bites and I can already feel my intestinal walls getting coated with grease, and no amount of water can wash it off. I have no choice but to resort to wine; its acidity is the only thing that cuts through it. By the end of the meal, I am inebriated.</blockquote>

I read this book a couple months ago, but I think it was the wrong time, the wrong place for me.

A modernist first half gives way to an absurdist second half which really removed DeAngelis from my sympathy.

Loved this book. Plenty of devious surprises and crackling suspense, along with interesting characters. Just the sort of book to cause a lack of sleep, but I won't complain! Highly recommended.

*This book was provided to me as an ARC at no charge in exchange for my honest review. My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to participate in this program.*

The Transaction
By Guglielmo D’Izzia
This novel makes me want to visit Italy. This novel also makes me NOT want to visit Italy. There are numerous dichotomous images and events in this novel that leave the reader unsettled.
Our protagonist is a man by the name of De Angelis. De Angelis is tasked with visiting a small town in Sicily to broker a real estate deal. Sounds simple? Nope. Whatever could go wrong does. The trip itself is filled with catastrophe with everything from a broken down train where the passengers have to walk in the scorching heat to the nearest town, to being attacked by feral dogs. All of this happens BEFORE De Angelis meets up with the people who have hired him. Not that it matters, these people have been murdered by the mafia on their way to meeting him at the train station. Of course, this crime leads the authorities to suspect our protagonist’s arrival in their town.
On this journey, De Angelis meets with all sorts of people of questionable moral character. De Angelis often struggles with doing “what is right”.
At times this novel is humorous, especially in the way our protagonist views the events he experienced, however, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread while I was reading.
This isn’t a long read, and it moves at a fast pace. If you like suspenseful and atmospheric novels, you will enjoy this one.
Thank you Netgalley and Guernica Editions for a free copy.

I didn't know much about The Transaction going into it, and the experience as I began the book and unravelled what it was about was really enjoyable, so I'm not going to write much or anything about the plot here. What I will say, however, is if you like historical fiction and feeling confused and suspicious as a reader, this book will definitely be up your ally. Putting the threads together than being spun out and confused again when something new happened made it such a page-turning read.

My issues with the book maybe wouldn't bother anyone or might bother some people quite a lot, and they did bother me so I thought it important to voice them. The way the book is written I think certain views in it are meant to be reflexive of the protagonist and to set the time and place, and not at all reflective on the author, but they still made me uncomfortable. The way the protagonist describes fat women, several times in the book, is uncomfortable. As is how the protagonist describes African migrant workers. It's unfortunate because these certain lines completely broke immersion in the book for me. I get if it is because we aren't meant to like the protagonist and to set the scene, but I think there are more creative ways to get that across rather than resting on gross and over-done tropes about fat women or black men.

I would definitely give this book a go if you like slice of life mysteries about small towns where you will be suspicious of everyone, including the main protagonist. Aside from the uncomfortable descriptions I really enjoyed this book and if its sounds up your ally it just came out from Guernica Editions!

De Angelis is on his way from Milan to Sicily to conclude a real estate transaction when his train is cancelled, stranding him. After much trouble, he finally arrive at his destination to find that his contact is not there to meet him. He asks around, encountering little co-operation, until he learns that his contact has been shot.

The villagers make it clear that De Angelis is not wanted and that he needs to go away, but he feels obliged to at least try to conclude his transaction, as his boss requires. He strings his boss along, unable to bring himself to give him the bad news.

De Angelis gradually descends from being a respectable businessman to a hounded and despised outsider, all in the context of a baking hot and grim village environment. Oddly, it reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, in that the protagonist finds himself in a strange world where he doesn't understand what people expect of him, doesn't know the rules and finds himself upsetting people constantly.

This is a pretty raw and confronting story. Probably not for everybody, but certainly interesting, and different.

The Publisher sent me a review copy via NetGalley

2.5 stars were my final assessment

This book follows De Angelis, a Milanese businessman, and his harrowing trip and stay at a small Sicilian village. De Angelis is sent Sicily to attempt to secure the purchase of a storage facility, but his endeavors are continuously halted or delayed by a series of weird unfortunate events. From being stranded midway to the murder of his connection in town, in what appears to be a Mafia hit, De Angelis finds himself trapped in a city that hides many secrets and wishes him gone.

At first, I quite enjoyed this novel, the writing was very atmospheric, and as someone who lived in Italy for a few years, I can say for sure that it captured Italian culture and landscape beautifully. Even the smallest almost ridiculous quirks of its bureaucracy. However, I think this should not have been a novel, to be honest. Maybe a short story would have suited to story better and given it a more significant impact.

To compare this to Kafka seems like a slight disservice to Kafka's memory. The inspiration is bright, sure, but such is a vague inspiration in Camus, The Stranger, and it is that vagueness that leads to the first half and the second half of the book to be contradictory to each other. In the halfway point of the book, the village starts to become less mysterious. The motivation behind every character's actions becomes evident, and the main character/narrator becomes very dull and almost annoying in his lack of personality. Although he is given several ways out of this situation, he does not take them and then continued to complain about it. What seems to have happened is that the author could not decide if he wanted to write a story about North vs. South relations in the spirit of The Trial, or if he wanted to write fan fiction about The Godfather. There is a lot to be said about how that could be done well, but at last, it seems like too many ideas, not enough editing.

Also, about halfway the author attempts to make a commentary on Arab and African immigrants in Italy, that flopped. The scene was almost wholly divorced from what came before and what followed it, plus it made no sense with the original premise: that this little Sicilian town is completely isolated and thus hostile to foreigners.

On another note that lessened my enjoyment exponentially of the novel was the translation. This is not the fault of the writer, of course, but I think it should be pointed out that many times the dialogue seamed translated on Google Translator. I am not by any means completely fluent in Italian, but the amount that I know was sufficient to see how the dialogue, especially when it was more informal, was translated literally from Italian and did not work in English. The impact of the translation is a huge one when it comes to the success of that novel. So, I would urge you to take my overall assessment with that in mind.

Overall, I hoped this book had stuck to its beginning premise or at least had been a short story, which I think could have been fantastic.

Je suis dans l'impossibilité de lire ce livre au sujet super intéressant ; il est en pdf alors que je lis sur tablette et que ce format est rédhibitoire. C'est malheureux. Je mets 3 étoiles car je ne peux pas juger du contenu.

This is written in an interesting, but simple style that is designed to feel off kilter. I assume this is why a number of things seemed to happen for no reason or not related to the plot. I tend toward novels with more "realism" in them. So this was OK for me. It has some good twists and was certainly unpredictable. I don't think this will have wide appeal but will be appreciated by a certain segment.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

<i>The Transaction</i> is a kafkaesque work of fiction in that it has a distinct sense of danger but remains surreal throughout. The protagonist, De Angelis is a calm and controlled businessman who is determined to complete his business in spite of the odd and unexplained events surrounding his visit to a small southern village. <i>The Transaction</i> is Guglielmo D’Izzia’s first novel.

De Angelis is sent on a business trip to complete a real estate transaction in the small Sicilian village of Figallia. On his way his train breaks down and in spite of a series of odd events he makes to the town via bus. Upon his arrival, he finds that the person he is to meet has been shot along with another person. De Angellis is still determined to complete his transaction but the people of the village remain mysterious and uncooperative. A chance encounter with some village children, including a young girl he is inordinately fascinated with, puts De Angellis in danger and he must leave the village.

The book is easy to read. The language is simple and direct and the descriptions evoke a high level of emotion. There is a sense of danger throughout but it is unclear why since it is rarely explained.

I struggle with the book because, although I am able to easily follow the story, very few events are explained to their fullest and many unrelated events occur during the story. I am sure there is an artist bent to the novel that escapes me.

I label this novel kafkaesque because this term means that a story is marked by senseless, disorienting complexity, surreal distortion and a sense of impending danger. For me this exactly how I would describe what I have read. I give it a 3 on 5.