Browsing through Lire Magazine’s September edition on the subject of french novels, I came across a write up of the latest novel by Simonetta Gregio ‘Les Nouveaux Monstres’ and mentioning her previous book La Dolce Vita, explaining that this novel begins with Eckberg and Mastroianni in the film La Dolce Vita, leading us then through the tragi-comedy of Italy in the decades to come with the country torn between the CIA, the Vatican, the Mafia, the far right wing parties and the communists and red brigade.
The story concerns a series of conversations between a dying Don Emanuele and his confessor and secret half brother Saverio, the book begins as a novel but slowly becomes a thoroughly documented thesis on Recent Italian history. I wish to be clear here the author seems to have an axe to grind. Maybe the need to attribute responsibility for this history more squarely on the right is justified, I neither know (the book does not enlighten me here) nor care. The subject I feel is reheated. The book was truly a long hard slog, why on earth this was recommended by Lire magazine I do not know.
South of Paris books 
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