I tramezzini di Rocco Schiavone
“They are sparks, memories, fragments of Rocco’s life.” Stories that come together to form a single portrait: an exchange of affections between Rocco and his past, between the author and his character, and his master. Above all, they are memories, each one kindled, like the famous madeleines, by the taste of a tramezzino. Rocco’s first childhood adventure, with Brizio, Furio and Seba: a prank played on a loan shark. The tale of a homeless man in exchange for a couple of bottles of Peroni, in a Trastevere that is still poor, teaching the little gang what a story is worth, beyond questions of truth and falsehood. The schoolteacher’s hollow patriotism and Grandpa Pietro’s sincere patriotism. A young Brizio’s heist, brilliant in its conception but ending in the style of Big Deal on Madonna Street. A trap for Rocco Schiavone, a grotesque mise-en-scène that lays bare before him the petty cruelties in which he takes pleasure. And the first appearance, in a September Panarea chosen as a sad refuge, of the ghost of Marina, his wife and lifelong companion, now murdered. To this album of the origins of a personal imaginary are added a number of detective stories: cases that bear witness to the making of Deputy Police Chief Schiavone, to his intuition laced with anarchic sarcasm. Antonio Manzini dedicates his “tramezzini” to a deep friendship that, together with its warmth, passed on to him a commitment to be carried forward: the magnificent art of storytelling. “A clear reference, then — I would almost say an obvious one for anyone who loved and still loves Camilleri. This book is dedicated to him, because some have arancini and others tramezzini; some walk to the rhythm of a sad waltz, and some still believe in the deepest kind of friendship and honour it in the secrecy of memory.”