So many mysteries
as strong and black as good espresso are coming out of Italy
these days that a book watcher might just detect a trend.
In the last couple of months, there have been such dark delights
as "The Smell of the Night," by Andrea Camilleri,
and "Involuntary Witness," by Gianrico Carofiglio.
Like Carofiglio, an anti-Mafia judge, Massimo Carlotto has
a history as riveting as any novel. In 1976, the left-wing
militant was charged with murder; he fled to Paris and then
Mexico before being returned to Italy, where after seven years
in prison a presidential pardon set him free in 1993, and
he soon became one of Italy's most popular writers.
"The Goodbye Kiss," Carlotto's first book to
be published in the United States (by the increasingly impressive
new Europa Editions), has a lead character--by no stretch
of the imagination a hero--named Giorgio Pellegrini. Still
wanted for political crimes in Italy, he is hiding out in
Central America, his idealism burned away. The betrayal
of his revolutionary colleagues by one of their leaders
makes Pellegrini decide to head home to Italy, to see if
anything is left of his once lofty plans and hopes.
There isn't much light in Carlotto's piazza, and readers
expecting soothing travelogues might opt for another writer.
But those with a taste--even a need--for an occasional inky
cup of bitter honesty should lap this up. |
