A slim and unusual novel from Italy, The First True Lie is the story of a young boy who conceals the death of his mother for as long as he can.
Luca lives with his mother and their cat, Blue. She is an attractive and artistic woman, always dating the wrong men. The toll of being a single mother is wearing on her--she is on the brink of collapse. The depth of her devastation is something the adult reader can understand better than Luca. Despite lacking the intellectual framework in which to grasp his mother's situation, Luca does know it intuitively.
Luca is exceptionally bright. When tragedy strikes, Luca's intelligence both aids and paralyzes him. After returning home from school to find his mother dead in her bed--ostensibly from a sleeping pill overdose--Luca is immediately seized with the terrified thought of being placed in an institution for orphan children. For the remainder of the novel, while Luca pretends that everything is normal, the chill of his new status in life creeps into the text in increasing degrees. More than anything else, The First True Lie is defined by its pervasive atmosphere of isolation, offset by Luca's vivid daydreams and the imaginary games he plays in which Blue is his personal assistant who can talk.
Luca is forced to confront who he is. To get there, he journeys through many fantasies and daydreams, all of which contain the yearning for a different reality. But in the end, reality can't be shut out forever. --Ilana Teitelbaum, book reviewer at the Huffington Post