What’s in a (Sub)title?

When one title for a novel just isn't enough

Authors often wrestle with titles, and in the tension between the one they would like and the one most likely to appeal to readers – often the publisher’s choice – there can be only one winner. Happy is the author who can dream up a title that pleases everyone.

I was one of those happy authors, having received the green light for Italian Rules, my proposed title for the fourth of my Bologna-set mysteries, but I was also permitted a subtitle: The Three Endings of Toni Fausto.

The Three Endings centres around a missing giallo, or Italian exploitation thriller from the 1980s, and the clues it might provide to the murder of its director. I admit I was chuffed when one reader confessed that they had googled the missing movie, Love on a Razorblade, only to discover it didn’t exist. 

The titles of my debut, A Quiet Death in Italy, and my third novel, Requiem in La Rossa, did the job, but I felt my second, The Hunting Season, was too easily lost among other crime titles. The Hunting Season could refer to almost anything, including, as chance would have it, a novel by Andrea Camilleri. But not possessing the same level of recognition as a Camilleri, or Donna Leon for that matter, my title would have to try harder to stand out.

This was why I chose Italian Rules. The title comes from a seemingly throwaway exchange towards the beginning of the novel, when my narrator is playing the card game burraco at a private club.

Alberto and the Comandante cut the pack. Alberto won and was about to deal when he looked gravely at me: ‘Italian rules.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘What else?’

Nonetheless, I remained deeply attached to my chosen title for the novel, which I felt embodied its giallo soul. And weren’t some of my favourite novels subtitled? Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death; Vanity Fair, A Novel Without a Hero?

What’s in a title? Everything and nothing. Just a glance at Amazon will reveal the many books with the same name, and jumping onto the bandwagon to ape the design of a bestseller is as old as dust jackets. Titles along with covers exist to catch attention, while it is the business of the story to hold it.

So, where does the subtitle fit into all of this? Precisely where you will usually find it – upon the flyleaf between the two, a shared confidence between author and reader, as if to say: ‘this is what the book is really about. Are you ready? Then we’ll begin.

Italian Rules or The Three Endings of Toni Fausto is available here.

This article first appeared in Crime Writers Association News, May 2023

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