"We had learned to accept our father's irrational despotism like his whiskers," says the narrator of one of the stories in Life is short, etc. (1984 Editions / Asteroide; Catalan translation by Mercè Ubach). The new book by Veronica Raimo (Rome, 1978) returns to the first person to explore lives that do not necessarily coincide with the author's own, but which often share her ironic, biting, and harsh point of view. Raimo achieved great success in Italy with the novel Nothing is true (1984, 2023 editions), which sold more than 100,000 copies and won awards such as the Viareggio and Strega Giovani. It explored the obsessions and dirty laundry of a Roman middle-class family he knew very well: his own.