Early fifties of the last century. A house in the old historic center of a city Lombard never explicitly named (but evidently Brescia); a very special shop, where they sold items were packaged and military uniforms for officers; the oratory of the fathers of the Philippine Peace, where Father Giulio Bevilacqua, a friend of Giovanni Battista Montini and future cardinal-priest, he kept his lessons to the young. With a sober and fresh writing, through memories of childhood and early adolescence (a prodigious memory for accuracy of detail), the author brings to life the everyday life of his family: customs, "rites" family, the Christmas parties, holidays ...

Flowing in the text parental figures, the events of his uncles, the stories of the workers in the shop of his father, the friends of the school, the first emotional disturbances. It is a diary of life with the eye always turned to the house of lost time; a narrative sometimes very personal, but with various references to the social and cultural context of those years: the harsh contrasts between Democrats and Communists, the Cold War, the songs of the radio, the first television, the birth of the Sanremo Festival, the boom cinema, the Mille Miglia ...

A pleasant amarcord with the perfume of the Fifties. The commemoration of the past is accompanied by some "cursive" Reconsidering the places and the events of that time with the eyes of today, reveals in the background the conscious melancholy for the inexorable action of time.

 «Da molto tempo non mi affaccio a una finestra come facevo allora. A una finestra, intendo dire, che guardi sulla strada, dove scorre la vita della città. Tutte le case che ho avuto, dopo la prima dell’infanzia e della giovinezza, guardavano su giardinetti interni, spazi di passaggio per le automobili, facciate di altre abitazioni. Solo quella mia prima casa aveva due finestre che davano direttamente sulla strada. A quelle finestre, da bambino, mi piaceva restare affacciato a lungo, come davanti a uno spettacolo coinvolgente, specialmente le mattine d’estate quando le scuole erano chiuse».

Reviews:

Review on Il giornale di Brescia, December 07th 2014

Reading at the official presentation, by Marco Beck

Review on Corriere della Sera - Brescia

Review on Avvenire - Agorà

Review on EconomiaItaliana.it

Review on La voce di Romagna