Description

A cult classic of Italian literature published in English for the first time, with a foreword by Andre Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name

In the late 1960s, Leo Gazzara left his family in Milan and moved to Rome for work. Soon unemployed, he has spent his time in an alcoholic haze, bouncing between hotels, bars, romantic entanglements, and the homes of his rich and well-educated friends. Rome is indifferent. Leo drifts, aimless and alone.

On the evening of his thirtieth birthday, he meets Arianna, a young woman who is both fragile and seductive. All night they drive the city in Leo’s run-down Alfa Romeo, talking and talking. They eat brioche for breakfast, drink through the dawn, drive to the sea and back. A whirlwind beginning. This is the story of the year Leo fell in love and lost everything.

Intense, brief, witty and devastating, Last Summer in the City is a newly rediscovered classic of Italian literature. Translated into English for the first time by Howard Curtis, Gianfranco Calligarich’s romantic and despairing debut is reminiscent of The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises and The Catcher in the Rye.

Publisher Review

The true quality of this novel is the way it enlightens, with a desperate clearness, a relationship between a man and a city, that is, between crowd and loneliness -- Natalia Ginzburg The most beautiful love story of the year * Il Giornale * A masterpiece * Le Figaro * Dazzling in every detail * Elle * [A] sublime text, of extraordinary languid beauty and sadness * Sud Ouest * A sad, seductive declaration of love for Rome * Il Messaggero * A short, gorgeous, moving and magnificent story of love and solitude -- Il Sole 24 Ore This book, at once painful and ironic, remains a small gem * La Repubblica * A heartrending marvel * L'Echo * Charming, decadent, and emotionally ruthless . . . equal parts Fitzgerald and Antonioni . . . It's wonderful to have this devastating gem at large in the world again -- Andrew Martin, author of Cool for America