Book Review: “The City of the Living” by Nicola Lagioia
In Cold Blood
When you think of Rome, Italy, you might think of the city as a bit of a tourist trap: a place to visit the ancient Coliseum or see some statues of Michelangelo. In Nicola Lagionia’s hands, however, this version of the city is turned upside down. His latest work — a book of creative non-fiction titled The City of the Living — opens with the image of rats descending upon the 2,700-year-old burg. And with good reason. This is an account, told in novelistic form, of a horrible murder that plagued the city in March 2016. Two men on the verge of being thirty, Manuel Foffo and Marco Prato brutally tortured and killed a younger man named Luca Varani. The most shocking thing about the murder, though, was that it appeared to have absolutely zero motive behind it. The pair lured Varani to Foffo’s apartment with the intent of raping the man — Foffo was a heterosexual, but Prato was a gay man with a penchant for dressing up as a woman — and were high on a combination of cocaine and vodka. The murder, as it happened, came from out of seemingly nowhere. To this point, Lagiolia’s work — if it could be called a “novel” because its structure rivals that narrative tradition — tries to show, in part, how the two men who became killers could be considered guilty of the crime if they were simply evil enough to have no premeditation for the act they committed.
To that end, the book — which was originally published in Italy in 2020 and now has an English translation being released — is a gripping thriller that turns into something much more monstrous and shocking by its conclusion. Speaking of which, I did find this book to be a little overlong with multiple endings but let that not detract you from giving this work a serious look. Yes, the title is a little ironic, given the nature of the work’s contents, but Lagioia does a masterful job of reaching into the minds of the accused and pulling together a narrative from a variety of court documents and interviews that expose the hypocrisy of the Italian justice system. One of the things that I found startling in this work is the role that the crime media had in shaping the contours of the legal case against the two men. Essentially, it boils down to this: with a crime that is as shocking and as atrocious as this one was, most observers would have no problem bringing back the death penalty — even if doing so would open the usual can of worms of the possibility of an innocent person being executed.
Essentially, I suspect that the book may be of most interest to those who may have become familiar with the case in the international media, if it made it that far, as it was headline news in Rome and Italy right after the murders occurred. However, it is structured so that someone who has no familiarity with this goings-on can orderly follow the events as they transpired — though the author does play around with the timelines a bit. After all, the book opens in the days immediately following the murder, when Foffo confesses to his parents what has just happened, and Prato tries to kill himself on an overdose of sleeping pills at a hotel. While the outcome never seems to be in doubt for the perpetrators — life in prison — there are a few shocking twists on the road to justice. One of them being, and I hope I’m not giving a major piece of the book away (as all of this, I would imagine, is already in the public domain of sorts), is Prato winds up killing himself in jail while awaiting trial. If I criticized this book for having one too many endings, it’s probably because there isn’t a demarcation as to where the murder stopped having a ripple effect on those who loved the victim. You could even say the murder is still being felt in Roman society to this very day — obvious, given the need for this translation.
There is one other critique I had of the book that seemed unnecessary: Lagioia includes the narrative of an anonymous Dutch tourist who is looking to have sex with a minor. I know why this is in the book — to show just how far the mighty Rome has fallen in its garbage-strewn streets and society — but with a case as sensational as this one, it winds up detracting from the book somewhat. Overall, if I had a criticism, it goes back to my original point: the book is a bit too lengthy and could have had some fat trimmed from it. However, this is still a powerful work of creativity that recalls Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. This is a harrowing tale that becomes more and more uneasy to read as more and more of the sordid truth (as it is presented in a semi-fictitious framework) comes to the fore. While every murder can be said to be an act of unspeakable evil, this one takes the cake in terms of the fact that it is a senseless killing of a young life who, unfortunately, appeared to have had something of a double life. This is the sort of killing they might make movies about, but I have a suspicion no such film version will be forthcoming: the details are too sordid and debaucherous for even the silver screen. It takes a strong will of some fortitude to read this book, but if you have it you may wind up looking into the deep abyss of the worst of the human condition. Sometimes, you have to be reminded that human beings can be pretty terrible to each other, no matter the culture.
Nicola Lagioia’s The City of the Living will be published by Europa Editions on October 3, 2023.
Of course, if you like what you see, please recommend this piece (click on the clapping hands icon below) and share it with your followers.
Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com
