Finché nessuno muore / Lust for Paper

Vera Nevi in conversation with Giulia Piceni on her latest novel, domination and truth

Between the neon-lit Milan of the early 2000s and the unflinching intimacy of confession, Vera Nevi builds a literary world where domination becomes a metaphor for self-knowledge rather than control. Finché nessuno muore transforms the true story of a young girl becoming a dominatrix into an exploration of fragility, loneliness, and truth. In dialogue with the author herself, this interview uncovers the book’s rhythm, born from a mix of punk energy, fanzine aesthetics, and literary pulp, and explores the ways in which identity and vulnerability intertwine, both on the page and in life.

Let’s start by setting the mood for our conversation. If there was one song playing in the background while the reader goes through this interview, which one would it be? Even one from the playlist at the end of the book.

Actually, the main song I used as the theme of the book is Cheree by Suicide, but I’m funnier than that. I’d also choose Dominatrix by Dominatrix as it’s a sort of disco track, because the book is actually quite fun.

I was really struck by a line contained in the first page of the novel: “Ogni situazione che verrà raccontata qui è volatile e, se mai avremo il piacere di incontrarci, sicuramente vi stupirà l’arroganza con cui nego tutto / Every situation described here is volatile, and if we ever have the pleasure of meeting, you’ll surely be astonished by the arrogance with which I deny it all.” That is why, in the following questions, I made sure not to mention anything from the plot itself. In fact, if I had to describe the content of Finché nessuno muore, I would say it is the story of a young girl becoming a dominatrix, but readers should not expect whips filling its pages. I see it more as a book that investigates the idea of fragile truth. Were you seeking that while writing? Did you eventually find it in the process?

Um, actually, I’m surprised you caught that. I’ve done quite a few interviews now, mostly with men, and everyone focused on the whips and the clients, but there’s none of that. The book is about finding one’s own path; it’s a metaphor for that. Anyone can be the dominator, going through challenges and becoming either themselves or someone completely unexpected. To me, it’s really about finding one’s own truth by accepting the loneliness and fragility that pervades the outside world. It’s a coming-of-age story, essentially.

On the same line of thought, at the book presentation I wasn’t able to meet you, but I did exchange a few words with other versions of you. Yet the vera Vera (the true Vera, as people were saying there) was among us, and I couldn’t see her. How did such a plan come about? Is the Vera of the book the one that I have in front of me? From what I could read, such a name wasn’t even mentioned.

Yes, there’s no name in the book, but now I’m the real Vera. The name itself is evocative: it was chosen because, although the book is a novel, most of the situations are based on real experiences. They actually happened. However strange or exaggerated they may seem, they’re things that do occur, even if few people know about them. That’s why I chose Vera. The idea of having actresses at the presentation was there from the start. When I spoke to my publisher about how to present the book (whether I’d attend readings or not) I suggested hiring actresses who could become Veras. The women who performed were extraordinary (Mariavittoria Ennati, Chiara D’Alessandro, Stella Mazzei). They spent hours with me, discussing the book and shaping their interpretation. I didn’t expect it, but they even used Stanislavski’s method; their aim was to embody Vera not as a fictional character, but as a real presence. They wanted to understand her, and how the real Vera feels. I’m very happy with their interpretation. From the beginning, I imagined the presentation this way because, in the end, we are all actors in our own lives.

The context in which your story unfolds is Milan at the beginning of the 2000s, a time when subcultures were flourishing. If you had to describe that era to someone who never lived it, myself included, how would you? In what ways did the city’s cultural climate shape you, including your early days in the band?

I think those were the best years for Milan. It was such a cool time, especially to grow into adulthood. There wasn’t really social media yet (well, there was MySpace, but it didn’t define who you were like Instagram nowadays). What mattered was showing up. You had to actually go out, make friends, be as interesting as you could, but all in real life. People really put effort into that. Today, people pour energy into curating an image online, but back then, it had to be lived. The parties were incredible. There was the whole indie scene too, which I think is coming back now, somehow. Of course, there were lots of wannabes around, but that’s part of the game, right? The difference was, you couldn’t fake it. You had to be real, and people could tell who was and who wasn’t. It was a thriving, beautiful moment. Around that time, I also spent a short while in London, at Saint Martin’s Art School, but I decided to come back to Milan almost immediately. I even kept my place in London for a year, but I never went back, because Milan was better than London at the time.

On this matter, we normally ask interviewees to provide a selection of images to accompany the article, yet I believe that in this case we should use some oblique strategies, as Brian Eno would say. Which books, music videos, images, or other visual references can best capture the atmosphere of the book?

I don’t know if you’ve seen the cover, which was designed by Raisa Pardini.

I have it even signed by the two fake Veras. I’m missing one and the true one.

That already says a lot. People might be satisfied with the fake Veras’ signatures, but I think it adds value to the performance. For those who were there, having double signatures carries meaning. If I were to accompany the book with visuals beyond the cover itself, I’d choose fanzine imagery, and probably Bizarre magazine as mock references. I’d also include a touch of vintage Italian cinema, tattoos, punk aesthetics, and films like Cronenberg’s or Only Lovers Left Alive. I’ve mentioned a lot, but none of it feels banal to me.

Jarmush’s movie rings a bell to me. It was referenced in a precise scene in the book, right?

Yes! In fact, towards the end of the book there’s a scene with two girls dressed in a particular way, and to me that moment captures exactly the same atmosphere, very much like the movie. Many of the elements come from my own life: things I liked then and still like now. They’ve evolved, but never disappeared. The things that shape you at that time always stay with you. All the images, films, and aesthetic references.

Your tone of voice is very distinctive, at times theatrical, especially in the beginning when you are directly narrating to your friend Sibi, and more intimate towards the end once the reader has grown accustomed to you. Which literary references have shaped your prose? Stylistically, did you have a specific point of reference while writing?

Unfortunately, I’ll never be as good as the writers who inspired me, but one book that was really important to me is Sarahby JT LeRoy. It inspired me a lot. The whole story of JT LeRoy is wild: she was a middle-aged writer, a housewife, who wrote this incredible book about an amazing character. But when it came time to present it, she hired her nephew, dressed her up as a boy, and claimed the story was true (which it wasn’t). Still, the book was a hit. Asia Argento even made a film about it. I thought it was genius, great marketing. The book itself is pure pulp. You can’t put it down because it has rhythm and that’s what I tried to capture in my writing. My other favourite writer is Bret Easton Ellis. He’s a genius: each of his stories has its own kind of narration. I don’t think I got much from him, but he inspired me to aim high. And of course, Chuck Palahniuk as his novels have a very tight rhythm. I really wanted to capture rhythm more than language.

I really could feel this intention: the beginning is very theatrical as I was imagining you telling your story on a stage with us readers all in front, and then the atmosphere got tighter at the end, making me question “what was going to happen?”

Honestly, I didn’t plan to end the book that way, but at some point I just got tired of writing. It had to end. I could probably write another one about the dominatrix experience. At first, I didn’t want the main character to change, but then I realised the whole experience had changed me, so she had to change too, at least a little. Usually, in books, characters evolve more.

Exactly, she remained truthful to her idea.

I don’t know, it could be seen as a downside, to be honest, but I think that, not like the JT LeRoy book, since this is actually from a real-life experience, I really felt like it had to be real to a certain extent, not only novel-like. Obviously there are many parts which are unreal. I can say that sometimes the story has some narration to it, but all the happenings are all real.

In one of the first lines of the book, you say that, as a dominatrix, you realised people were showing you the most authentic side of themselves, giving voice to their deepest desires. You even suggest, with a fitting parallel, that meeting a dominatrix is like going to psychoanalysis. Where does your fascination with human nature come from?

I think I’ve always had it. I actually regret not studying psychology. Maybe I could invent a new psychology through pain. Maybe I should start a cult.

Why not? Do something like the Psychic Youth.

That was actually the topic of my thesis when I graduated from art school. But I’ve been fascinated by psychology since before that, and even more afterwards. During my four-year experience as a dominatrix, I understood quite a few things about people. I realised that what shapes someone’s idea of love, sex, and affection usually happens very early in life. It could be something silly. For example maybe you see your elementary school teacher wearing big earrings, you find her fascinating, and suddenly you’ll always be drawn to big earrings. It’s the same with sex. If you somehow mix love with your aunt spanking you because you’ve done something wrong, that association stays with you forever. It might even be wrong, but it becomes part of your wiring.

Now for example, I remember in the book when you mentioned the young self of Ulisse looking from the ground up at the legs of the woman at the hairdresser’s. That unlocked him a fetish for feet and adoration.

Exactly. That’s what I mean: it fits perfectly. So many slaves have told me similar stories. After each session, I’d often chat with them for ten minutes. They’d be so relieved, so open, telling me about their jobs, wives, children, even health problems. And when I’d ask why they were into what they were into, many would say, “I don’t know, but maybe when I was really young this or that happened.” I found it fascinating.

You knew the deepest desires of your slaves and could control them through their thirst for pain, yet you were a very young girl navigating a potentially dangerous adult world. In the book, you recount episodes in which you found yourself in real danger. What do you think prepared you to cope with such risks at that age?

Honestly, I was completely out of touch with reality. I was very young, and I didn’t realise how dangerous it was. If I went back now… I still like the idea of being a dominatrix, even though it’s been years since I’ve done it. I think a controlled place would be amazing, somewhere people work together and there’s real safety. But back then, I believed I could handle danger just by staying in character. Probably naïve of me as if I’d met someone truly violent, I wouldn’t have survived. That scene with the gun, for example, really happened. I handled it exactly as in the book, by staying in my dominatrix role. I was terrified inside, probably shaking, but it worked. And yes, I even met the guy a few more times after that.

And was he nice, as you said also in the book?

Yes, he was. No guns ever after. I’m a pacifist after all. I hate guns and I hate violence, as much as it sounds weird.

You write that within the dominatrix world there is a lot of competition, with practitioners often set against each other. Would you describe your practice as a solitary one? Beyond the support of Altea, the sort of interventionist angel in the book, whom or what did you turn to in moments of difficulty, without a real network around you?

It was an incredibly solitary experience, probably the most solitary one I’ve ever had. I didn’t really have a support network. It was something I had to go through alone and something I decided to end alone. There was no one to turn to, because everything that began in the club scene and the music world eventually turned dark. I still had my old friends, but I felt disconnected from them. You just go through it and that’s that.

I mean that’s very courageous at such a young age. I mean, I’m 23 right now. It’s the age in which you finished doing that. And it’s unbelievable, really, because the responsibility was all on you, as you didn’t have anybody to turn to.

No, there’s really no one. You might have friends, but they’re not there in that way. Even in the book, they’re not present, they’re barely mentioned.

One of the main characters and clients of yours said at a certain point, that it was like you had stopped going out with your friends.

That’s true. When you live a life that society doesn’t accept, you tend to withdraw. Of course, times are changing. Probably a dominatrix today could have a much broader support network.

Another key theme in the book is how many young women approach this vocation mistaking it for something else, often linked to sex, when it is not. On top of that, you had no mentor and entered this world on your own. What are the truths you wish you had known before stepping into it?

I think I was okay, actually. Nothing really disturbed me too much. What I did realise was the truth about men. I now have a very clear idea of men which wasn’t the one I had when I started. I used to get hundreds of phone calls a day. I can safely say men and women are very different. Men are sexually driven by their desires throughout their whole life; women are not. I wish women would listen more to their own desires, the way men do. I didn’t really uncover anything shocking; I was open to learning, and I learned through the experience. I had good experiences, maybe too good. Of course, today I’d tell anyone who’s curious to maybe do it through OnlyFans or in safer ways. You can even do it privately, which I don’t, but the main thing is: don’t do it alone. Even online, danger exists.

Your life as a dominatrix belongs to a time long past, “a life ago,” as you put it in the book. What would you tell the young Vera we meet in those pages, the nineteen-year-old girl trying to figure out the world?

I’d tell her to try more than one experience. Try this, yes, but also try other roles. You never know where you’ll end up. For me, it worked out well, but who knows how it could’ve gone if I’d chosen other paths too. I think everyone should have more than one experience. Maybe I’d tell her to cut this one a bit shorter. I’ve never tried something like an office job (not that I want to) but I’ve never tried. You never know. Life is short. You might as well try everything.

You write: “La verità è che tutti bramano una catena / The truth is that everybody craves something to be chained to” Have you ever found yourself wanting one too, to be chained to a secure life like Ulisse after your story had finished?

Oh, absolutely. My chain was actually being a dominatrix. For years, it became my comfort zone. When you live outside society and already know the risks, it’s hard to change. I wasn’t ready to let go; I was too attached to that world. When I finally decided to stop, I just turned off the phone and that was it. That was my chain: my own freedom and my own trap. But everyone has their own version: relationships, for example, can easily become that.

Agreed. The concept of love you explore in the book is fascinating.

I think love can be unconventional and still be strong. I don’t believe there’s just one kind of love. People experience it in many ways, even if 80% of them pretend there’s only one. I think you can love in multiple ways.

At the end of the book, you are offered a glimpse of normality through a new beginning, yet you refuse to say yes to it. Years later, what is Vera Nevi doing now? Has she embraced a new life? If truth cannot be found, how are you channeling your thirst for knowledge about the human mind today?

I’ve definitely embraced a new life. For the past ten years, I worked in fashion (fetish fashion, to be exact) but I grew tired of it. I’m over the overproduction, the constant creation of images made only to sell. I’m glad others still do it, but personally, I’m done. After fifteen years, I decided to write this book. A couple of years had passed since I closed my fashion business, and I realised I still needed to explore, but in a new way. Writing became that new experience. I’m now working on another book, about mental illness or rather, about breakdowns. It’s still a novel, but it touches on the moments when everything collapses, the kind of things everyone experiences but no one wants to talk about. I want to explore more about people through writing. I don’t know if it will sell, but I don’t care.

I read Finché nessuno muore in two days, so that should speak for itself.

That’s either a good sign or means it’s too short.

No, it just means I wanted more.