Every family story is, to some degree, imaginary because memory is capricious and unreliable.
In this novel, a narrative is spun by the youngest member of a chaotic family where ultra-Fascist fathers stand side by side their Partisan brothers and silent and regal wives play their part. The child observes the baffling lives of the adults and the mysterious dynamics of their relationships with keen insight and curiosity, catching fire from their enthusiasms while sensing their underlying anxieties.
Towering over him are his grandfathers—the maternal grandfather a staunch anti-Fascist who dreams of a career in politics and the paternal grandfather a gruff, emotionally distant, former Fascist and Futurist poet. Standing on opposite sides of the ideological divide, yet sharing a common destiny, these grandfathers face the disillusionment of a postwar period that betrayed the promises of their youth. Economic prosperity and the extraordinary atmosphere of 1960s Italy were not enough to compensate for that letdown.
Andrea Vianello recounts the story of a family wound up in the history of its country, from postwar trauma to the economic boom and the degradation that followed with a blend of affection amusement, empathy, and tenderness.
