Michele is a Calabrian boy who grew up in a dignified misery, in the fragile illusions and in the willing of redemption of Italy after the war. Searching for solid prospects for his future, one day decided to leave his birth place and move to Rome. The yearning and the initial disorientation typical of the migrants is relieved from an encounter with a retired high official, who offered him an employment opportunity and who welcomed him in his own house, proving to be a paternal and loving host. With his support and precious suggestions Michele will reach a tiresome balance between work and study, and will learn to orient through the woods of the first love sentiments. The domestic tranquility and together with the stability of the routine, however, will be suddenly violated from a murder that has mysterious contours, that delineate a disturbing scenario of the Cold War. Nothing in Michele’s life will remain the same. A bildungsroman crosses through twenty years in the history of contemporary Italy, years of the 1950s and 1960s with the delicacy and lucidity of a small fresco of the generation.
