Diogo Mainardi

Margaret Jull Costa

The Fall is a mercurial and enriching walk through 'off-script' fatherhood, cerebral palsy, art history and this commonplace mystery, love. The Fall is wise and kind and moving

The Fall is a moving portrait of a relationship with a child and a place. It is a rare book: by turns heartbreaking, angry and lyrical

A wise and unsentimental description of what it is like to be parent to a child with cerebral palsy—an episodic portrait of a very intimate paternal journey

Andrew Solomon, National Book Award–winning author of Far From the Tree

A poignant, beautiful book, angry and inquiring, lyrical and literate

A remarkable celebration...intensely moving, rational, literate, and an absolute joy to read from start to finish

John Berendt, New York Times best–selling author of In the Garden of Good and Evil and The City of Fallen Angels

Fathering a disabled child, like the plaza outside the Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo to which Diogo Mainardi consistently returns, is uneven terrain. In The Fall, Mainardi traverses that terrain in 434 lucid, deeply arresting steps

Ron Suskind, Pultizer Prize–winning journalist and author of Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes and Autism

Clever without showing off. Moving without being sentimental

'The Fall is a moving portrait of a relationship with a child and a place. It is a rare book: by turns heartbreaking, angry and lyrical' – Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare With Amber Eyes. 
 
Step 1: Tito has cerebral palsy. 
 
Step 2: I blame Tito’s cerebral palsy on Pietro Lombardo. 
 
Join Diogo Mainardi and his son Tito in a journey of 424 steps, starting with Tito’s disastrous birth in Venice, in Lombardo’s Renaissance hospital. 
 
It’s a journey full of joy and reflection, and an honest exploration of fatherhood. It’s a journey that follows the arc of Western culture, from Dante Alighieri, Rembrandt van Rijn and Claude Monet to Marcel Proust, Neil Young and Assassin’s Creed, to show how one boy’s fate has been shaped by history. 
 
Above all, it’s a celebration of love and courage, and of the hope and faith we place in our children.

Diogo Mainardi

Praise for The Fall

The Fall is a mercurial and enriching walk through 'off-script' fatherhood, cerebral palsy, art history and this commonplace mystery, love. The Fall is wise and kind and moving

The Fall is a moving portrait of a relationship with a child and a place. It is a rare book: by turns heartbreaking, angry and lyrical

A wise and unsentimental description of what it is like to be parent to a child with cerebral palsy—an episodic portrait of a very intimate paternal journey

The Fall is a mercurial and enriching walk through 'off-script' fatherhood, cerebral palsy, art history and this commonplace mystery, love. The Fall is wise and kind and moving

The Fall is a moving portrait of a relationship with a child and a place. It is a rare book: by turns heartbreaking, angry and lyrical

A wise and unsentimental description of what it is like to be parent to a child with cerebral palsy—an episodic portrait of a very intimate paternal journey

The Fall is a mercurial and enriching walk through 'off-script' fatherhood, cerebral palsy, art history and this commonplace mystery, love. The Fall is wise and kind and moving

The Fall is a moving portrait of a relationship with a child and a place. It is a rare book: by turns heartbreaking, angry and lyrical

A wise and unsentimental description of what it is like to be parent to a child with cerebral palsy—an episodic portrait of a very intimate paternal journey

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