Panarello, Melissa 1985–

(Melissa P.)

PERSONAL: Born December 3, 1985, in Catania, Sicily, Italy.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Grove Press, 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

CAREER: Writer.

WRITINGS:

(As Melissa P.) Cento colpi di spazzola prima di andare a dormire (fiction), Fazi (Rome, Italy), 2003, translation by Lawrence Venuti published as 100 Strokes of the Brush before Bed, Black Cat (New York, NY), 2004.

Author's writing has been translated into twenty-four languages.

ADAPTATIONS: 100 Strokes of the Brush before Bed was optioned for film.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A novel titled The Smell of Your Breath.

SIDELIGHTS: Melissa Panarello is a young Italian writer whose first book, 100 Strokes of the Brush before Bed, is a sexually explicit, fictionalized memoir that became a best seller in Italy. The book has also raised controversy largely because the author was only eighteen years old when the book was published. In an interview with Carrie Hill Wilner on the Nerve.com Web site, the author noted, "It's an autobiographical novel written in the form of the diary of Melissa P., my alter ego, recounting this series of sort of degrading sexual experiences she has through the age of sixteen. And well, teenagers having and talking about extreme sexual experiences will always cause controversy."

Written in the form of a diary, the novel focuses on fifteen-year-old Melissa's search for love, which leads her to a series of varied sexual encounters, including sadomasochism. For the most part, she does not have good relationships with her sexual partners and finds friendship with other social outsiders, including a transvestite and a lesbian. Although Melissa understands that her sexual obsessions are not healthy, she finds it difficult to stop and rationalizes her love affairs as part of growing up and learning about life. Although Melissa feels the pain of knowing her lovers ultimately care little for her as a person, she also is proud that she can seduce people so easily. To help calm herself at nights and come to terms with her sexual lifestyle, she counts out one hundred strokes of the brush through her hair before she goes to bed. At one point in the book, Melissa's mother tells her a fable that is designed to help her deal with many sexual experiences and the people she encounters. In a Nerve.com interview Panarello noted: "I definitely think the lesson of that fable is relevant to the book, and to my experience. It's not incidental."

"The movement between fable and teenage confession—all that loneliness, angst and longing—makes for an odd tension in a story that otherwise might be considered conventional erotica, full of cliché and tease, stiletto-heeled lovers and spankers," wrote Lenora Todera in the New York Times. "One day she's hard-core, the next Cinderella." Several reviewers, including Todera, noted that the novel reveals the author's immaturity and contains clichés often associated with young writers. Dale Raben, writing in the Library Journal, commented that the seemingly contrived language could "be the fault of the book's translation, as a Romance language would make all the metaphors sound less cheesy." However, a Kirkus Reviews contributor called the novel a "staggeringly assured debut," and in a review for People, Kyle Smith dubbed the book "upscale erotica" and "plenty sultry." A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that "Melissa tells herself no fairy tales—and therein lies the odd, potent purity of these pages."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

P., Melissa, 100 Strokes of the Brush before Bed, translation by Lawrence Venuti, Black Cat (New York, NY), 2004.

PERIODICALS

China Daily, December 25, 2003, "Teenager Takes Italy by Storm, with Her Lust Tale."

Guardian (London, England), August 22, 2004, Sophie Arie, "I Regret Nothing, Says Italy's Porn Teen" (interview).

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2004, review of 100 Strokes of the Brush before Bed, p. 709.

Library Journal, August, 2004, Dale Raben, review of 100 Strokes of the Brush before Bed, p. 69.

New York Times, November 7, 2004, Lenora Todaro, review of 100 Strokes of the Brush before Bed.

People, November 1, 2004, Kyle Smith, review of 100 Strokes of the Brush before Bed, p. 49.

Publishers Weekly, September 20, 2004, review of 100 Strokes of the Brush before Bed, p. 45.

Telegraph (London, England), Jane Shilling, review of 100 Strokes of the Brush before Bed.

ONLINE

Best of Sicily Web site, http://www.bestofsicily.com/ (June 20, 2005), Maria Luisa Romano, review of 100 Strokes of the Brush before Bed.

Melissa P. Home Page, http://www.melissap.org (June 20, 2005).

Nerve.com, http://www.nerve.com/ (June 20, 2005), interview with author.