Stories, told and published.
Three works of fiction and short stories, each taking its own direction, exploring identity, society, and the shifting ways people interpret the world around them.
Published fiction and short stories.
Three works, three directions.
Three works that trace different narrative directions: digital alienation, dystopian resistance, and short-form social conscience.
Akkuaria Edizioni
Che verso hanno le tazzine da caffè?
Which way do the coffee cups face?
A witty and introspective social novel about alienation and digital identity in the early internet age. The protagonist, Luca, is a thirty-something research analyst whose life has grown monotonous and emotionally hollow.
Dissatisfied with his superficial job, disconnected relationships, and an increasingly image-driven society, he slips into the world of online chatrooms through his friend Tonino — a distraction that turns into an existential plunge into virtual connections and digital illusions, blurring the line between real and virtual life.
Peluso merges satire and psychology to critique the society of appearance and the emotional numbness of hyperconnectivity. A later updated version, Relazione complicata: Che verso hanno le tazzine da caffè? 2.0 (2013), returned to the same theme and expanded the reflection on digital relationships and social disillusionment.
0111 Edizioni
La città che brucia
The Burning City
A dystopian novel blending environmental collapse, political decay, and mythological allegory. Set in a bleak future version of Italy, especially its southern regions, the story follows Jenny and Mario, two sixteen-year-olds who leave the Underground, a network of subterranean shelters where people have retreated to escape the surface world.
Above them lies a vast toxic wasteland ruled by an elite group known only as “Them,” made uninhabitable by radiation, pollution, and warfare. Amid devastation, the protagonists discover a secret resistance movement fighting back against oppression — and the novel revives the Monaciello, a mischievous Neapolitan folk spirit, transforming legend into a symbol of hope and rebellion.
Through speculative fiction, Marcello builds a political and ecological allegory where environmental disaster merges with dictatorship and cultural amnesia, producing a dark coming-of-age odyssey shaped by science fiction, social critique, and Neapolitan myth.
Giulio Perrone Editore Lab
Rac-Corti · “Non capisco”
Mini stories for readers in a hurry
Rac-Corti: mini storie per chi va di fretta, edited by Andrea Careri and published in Rome in 2008, is a literary collection devoted to the art of the very short story — compact narrative moments distilled into just a few pages, bringing together micro-stories by emerging and independent Italian authors.
Marcello Peluso’s contribution, Non capisco (“I Don’t Understand”), is a brief yet powerful narrative dedicated to the innocent victims of the Camorra. Later released as a standalone eBook, it unfolds as the monologue of a young boy from the outskirts of Naples trying to make sense of life, injustice, and death in a region overshadowed by organized crime.
The refrain “non capisco” becomes a language of impotence and disillusionment. The Camorra is not represented through spectacle, but through its psychological and social aftermath: how it infiltrates ordinary life, corrodes trust, and weakens hope itself.