Giangiacomo Schiavi, Gigi Rizzi
Ho ammazzato Gigi Rizzi

THE REVIEW

"It was another '68, without Molotov cocktails and barricades, in the scorching summer of Saint Tropez. But that tricolored flag waving under Madrague marked an era, like the protests that burned the squares and occupied the universities [...] We, the Italian kids of Saint Tropez, to win over, to conquer, had to battle against the super-rich. I didn't have a Ferrari or a Rolls Royce or even a thirty-meter yacht; I played it all on my face and that was the most exciting challenge. Gunther Sachs, Brigitte's ex-husband, playboy and billionaire, would descend from his helicopter dressed as Dracula, throwing tons of red roses, entering the harbor with his Aquarama firing smoke bombs. I danced flamenco on the table kicking glasses. Barefoot, jeans, hair in the wind, and off I went. Vaffanculo. [...]" 

An intriguing journey through an Italy that is very different from the one we are usually told about when discussing '68: you devour the pages of this book that honestly and unashamedly tells the excessive life of a man who burned every moment, overwhelmed by an irrepressible joie de vivre. A story full of emotions and joy, but also much pain, much melancholy. A book that exudes life from every page, to be read in one breath.

Giangiacomo Schiavi proves himself to be, as usual, excellent, with a succinct and intense style that captures you from the very first pages, capable of transforming what was supposed to be simply the biography of a life lived to the fullest into the portrait of a society too often snubbed aprioristically and, above all, of a generation that made history in its own way. The memory of the Lost Time becomes a tale, celebration, and at times a curse: it will not return. Friendship, joy, and emotions survive, because as Nietsche wisely said, "the shared joy, not the pain, makes the friend". Around the corner, there is always the risk of surviving oneself, of being overwhelmed by what has been. However, all this interests us readers very little: we can be content with a fascinating story that, strangely, passed almost unnoticed in bookstores.

P.S.

The first edition, published by Rizzoli, is now practically unobtainable: the book was reprinted with some modifications in 2003, with the title "Io, BB e l'altro '68" by the publisher Carte Scoperte.