Michael
Nicola Lagioia’s The City of the Living is the In Cold Blood-like retelling of the brutal and horrifying story of the murder of Luca Varani by Manuel Foffo and Marco Prato in Rome in 2016. First, I have to say that I generally don’t like works that are neither one thing or the other. I’m far too rigid and like things in categories—just ask anyone who knows me! The book cover says that this is “the true story of modern Rome’s most shocking murder.” Yet my edition published by Europa Editions labels this a work of fiction. The outlines of the story are true. Foffo and Prato did torture and murder Varani, but I guess because there are many conversations that the author could not have heard but reconstructed and motives guessed at, it falls into the fiction category?
That being said, this is a brutal, very graphic book about the actual murder and Lagioia obviously did a lot of research and a lot of interviewing before writing it. I liked the writing style and structure of the book. I know that being so close to this story Lagioia must have come to some sort of conclusions about the 3 main characters, but if so, he doesn’t tell us what exactly it is. He doesn’t really say who he thinks initiated the crime, what were Foffo’s and Prato’s true motives, and what were the underlying causes, although he acknowledges that the prodigious use of drugs must have played a part. I liked the way the city of Rome itself is a character, if a brutal, sordid, and almost disgusting one.
One thing I didn’t really like was the parallel story of the Dutch tourist. I’m not sure why it was included. It certainly does show how depraved and evil this pedophile was, but the main story was not about pedophilia but about murder. I suppose it was included because it shows the loopholes in Italian law.
Anyway, this was a very good book, that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone. I think a person needs to pick it up themselves read the book cover and then decide if they want to read about murder, rape, pedophilia, heavy drug use, etc., and the effect of these on the people left behind.
Nicola Lagioia’s The City of the Living is the In Cold Blood-like retelling of the brutal and horrifying story of the murder of Luca Varani by Manuel Foffo and Marco Prato in Rome in 2016. First, I have to say that I generally don’t like works that are neither one thing or the other. I’m far too rigid and like things in categories—just ask anyone who knows me! The book cover says that this is “the true story of modern Rome’s most shocking murder.” Yet my edition published by Europa Editions labels this a work of fiction. The outlines of the story are true. Foffo and Prato did torture and murder Varani, but I guess because there are many conversations that the author could not have heard but reconstructed and motives guessed at, it falls into the fiction category?
That being said, this is a brutal, very graphic book about the actual murder and Lagioia obviously did a lot of research and a lot of interviewing before writing it. I liked the writing style and structure of the book. I know that being so close to this story Lagioia must have come to some sort of conclusions about the 3 main characters, but if so, he doesn’t tell us what exactly it is. He doesn’t really say who he thinks initiated the crime, what were Foffo’s and Prato’s true motives, and what were the underlying causes, although he acknowledges that the prodigious use of drugs must have played a part. I liked the way the city of Rome itself is a character, if a brutal, sordid, and almost disgusting one.
One thing I didn’t really like was the parallel story of the Dutch tourist. I’m not sure why it was included. It certainly does show how depraved and evil this pedophile was, but the main story was not about pedophilia but about murder. I suppose it was included because it shows the loopholes in Italian law.
Anyway, this was a very good book, that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone. I think a person needs to pick it up themselves read the book cover and then decide if they want to read about murder, rape, pedophilia, heavy drug use, etc., and the effect of these on the people left behind.