A married woman with stepchildren participates in a crime with her new male lover. The woman in question narrates this short story by the Italian author Alberto Moravia called “The Other Side of the Moon.”

The woman is a bank teller; she helps to rob the bank. The story is about self-alienation in everyday living. The woman comments that she is “detached from the things I am doing at the very moment that I’m doing them.” Actions against traditional values may be another trope. Included in The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, “Moon” is a trenchant five and a half pages. A palpably secular piece, it offers no moral significance but does offer profundity.