Every family has a quarter of dark blood, passed down from generation to generation. Those who have found peace and serenity, however, must know that the quarter of dark blood runs through their veins and it only takes a little for it to return to claim hereditary rights over every man’s fate. The protagonist of this story, a 50-year-old from Livorno who, with his wife, decides to retire to the countryside to get away from a society in which he no longer finds himself, is convinced of this. Then again, when he traces the lives of his fabulously eccentric relatives, such as Cousin L., standing behind the bar counter from 6 a.m. until midnight, serving customers with whom he never exchanged a word because he “had nothing to say,” or Cousin S., who fled the seminary to lock himself in a room without food or any kind of comfort, he is certain: strangeness runs through the branches of his family tree. It is no wonder, then, that he is reserved for the end he is going to, in exile, far from everyone. Simone Lenzi takes us into the intimate rooms of memory, where the secrets of existence are hidden. A skilled portrayer of human types, with bright colors and intense nuances he delves into the everyday life of three generations, unhinging the paradigms of contemporary literature.

«Is this gifted author not carrying out a melancholy reflection on everyday aspiration and defeat? » – Teresa Ciabatti

All songs are love songs (even the ones that are not); all songs are political songs (even the ones that are not committed); all songs are catchy (even the ones that when your grandfather heard them, he would look out into his bedroom and shake his head, «What kind of junk is that? »): Simone Lenzi starts from here and among staves, words and big names in Italian and international music – from Gino Paoli to Franco Battiato, from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones – he invites us to enter the great workshop of popular song and discover its behind-the-scenes. This book is also designed for those who do not know music grammar and solfeggio: one can look at a staff as one looks at a beautiful landscape, reading the notes as if they were the contours of a mountain or the waves of the sea.