"I realized I had to leave. To go far away, beyond any familiar place. Milan wasn't enough, not even London or Paris. I had to put an ocean's worth of distance between me and life. I realized it suddenly, as I lay on the veranda, with my eyes to the sky and the stars above me. After a few seconds, the result was in front of me: 'Congratulations, you've purchased your ticket to New York'."

This is the story of a boy like many others, who has just finished university and doesn't know what to do with his life. But one thing is certain: when he embraces his girlfriend at night, he actually thinks only of New York. A boy who craves life, who craves freedom. And New York for him is total freedom: it's unexpected encounters with different and unusual people, it's having breakfast with a bagel instead of a croissant, preferring tacos to pizza, not noticing the quirks of people because they seem normal to you. But above all, New York is the lights of the skyscrapers that seem like stars, intertwining stories, and a thousand dreams that are not forgotten in the morning. After all, everything important in a person's life happens there after sunset. Even though all that glitters is not always gold. New York, indeed, can also be loneliness: with its cold indifference, it forces you to look in the mirror, to come to terms with your roots and with what is truly important. The protagonist of this novel will discover it on his own: choosing family, his origins, or his future, giving up on his affections or seeking new ones, returning to Italy or living in America.

Piero Armenti, in this itinerant story, where the city is not just a backdrop, but a real character, takes us by the hand and guides us through the busy streets of New York, uncovering its hidden faces and most suggestive places (gathered in a map at the end of the book). A novel that will make you dream and experience in all its aspects the city that never sleeps.