Give Me a Little Life

Turin, February 1926. Amidst the turmoil of Mussolini’s fascism, Moraldo, a frightened, insecure and indecisive young man, searches for his true self, looking up to his peer Piero as his role model. In contrast to Moraldo, twenty-five-year-old Piero fights with stubbornness and passion against Mussolini’s dictatorship. Thanks to a suitcase, the lives of the two young men will intersect in Paris, where Piero will find refuge, hunted by the fascist regime, and Moraldo, in pursuit of an unexpected love. Paolo di Paolo, the ‘wonder of Italian literature’, a nominee for the Strega and Campiello literary prizes, depicts Italy in the 1920s whilst paying tribute to the Turin-born activist, journalist, politician and intellectual Piero Gobetti. A novel about the difficult yet inevitable transition of young people into adulthood, and at the same time a lesson in life and history.

The story of a family. The father, a professor about to retire, gives the class’s worst pupil a lift in his car. The mother attempts the first escape of her life. The daughter tries to understand the complexities of romance through harmless flirtations. And the son, the book’s narrator, is studying History and wants to write his thesis on Berlusconi, the only prime minister his generation has known. The story, then, of a family that is at once the story of a country and the story of a generation – a nameless generation seeking to find its way in a society without principles. A contemporary, original novel that describes, satirises, scoffs, mourns and rebels, but above all attempts to give a name to the confusion of our times.