Serena Dandini (photo by Gianmarco Chieregato).
TO they come back sometimes and not just in horror stories. A writer is never abandoned by his charactersand even when they are now nailed to the pages of a book they continue to live in his imagination, they visit him insistently, almost harass him… Until the author decides again to dedicate another story to hima further life for the joy of us readers.
Edoardo Nesifortunately for him, did not have to suffer the treatment inflicted on the successful writer Paul Sheldon played by James Caan in the film Misery must not diebut he voluntarily decided to continue telling the adventures of a character with whom he debuted in his first book Standstill escapes in 1995.
And so right off the press The wolves inside (The Ship of Theseus) which closes a trilogy, Nesi returns to narrate the events of Federico Carpini, a former lion from his romantic Prato tinged with bitterness where the golden age is now gone forever. The novel travels back and forth naturally between the failed present and the memory of the formidable 1980s, when the condemnation of globalization had not arrived in that industrious and optimistic province and there was still money, stuff and cheeky carefreeness of a group of young bulls who could happily squander the assets accumulated by their fathers.
Federico is now sixty years old in the present and is as damaged as his old Porsche 964, we catch him the day before a bailiff takes away what little is left of the family fortune. But he is not alone, Ivo Barrocciai and Vittorio Vezzosi, his lifelong friends, accompany him on this day illuminated by the glow of the sunset: If it has to be the end, let it be great and in company.
“The wolves inside” by Edoardo Nesi (The ship of Theseus)
Edoardo Nesi is more than fond of his characters, he is in love with them and we are with him, and like few others he has the magical touch of telling us about the decline of our country in its most bitter, comical and grotesque aspects. Its protagonists are anti-heroes doomed to defeat who go towards ruin with a smile on their faceswe have already met them in the most beautiful Italian comedy films or in some jewel songs by Paolo Conte.
It is often repeated that only American literature is able to poetically portray the province in its deepest, funniest and most melancholy folds… But this is said by those who have never read Edoardo Nesi.
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