Review

(My review on goodreads)

Enzo Laganà is a 37 year old journalist in Turin, living in the neighborhood of San Salvario where he has lived since he was a young boy. His family was from Calabria, and moved to Turin at a time when southerners were openly treated as inferior, so he feels at least some solidarity with the immigrants who are not the object of scorn and hatred by much of Italian society.

There are four stories in this novel: the piglet, a series of gang murders, Enzo´s excessively nosy mamma, and … well, the fourth would be a bit of a spoiler. Things get a bit complicated for Enzo as he negotiates the landmines of each of the subplots.

I liked this little novel because Lakhous does a great job of putting an entertainng and light-hearted veneer over some serious themes: nativist responses to immigration; organized crime, and its cozy relationship with the political elite; and racial and ethnic conflict.

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