[...] That brings us to The Sour Lemon Score, often controversial in its sharp, layered, three-dimensional portrait of internalized homophobia. If Stark’s portrayal is visceral, it is never cruel. His characters are capable of horrific acts, but you understand the humanity behind them: denial, fear of being seen as ‘other’, a cutting commentary on masculinity, etc. These are conversations the novel engages in because they matter to its author. On the other hand, the Italian translation uses language that not only was already outdated by the dawn of the 1970s but language that seeks to hurt, to disapprove, to paint as ‘wrong’.