Beneficio d’inventario

It is Christmas Eve when Marco Follini receives a phone call from the former president of the Republic, who confides that his father was one of the leaders of Gladio. The news leaves Follini, the narrator of Beneficio d’inventario, stunned and surprised, and it is the catalyst that leads him to retrace his father’s life, from his “beginnings” in the partisan struggle and then throughout the post-war period, during which he played an important, albeit discreet, role as a bridge between Italy and the United States. In this book, Follini rediscovers the stylistic and narrative qualities that have already been appreciated by audiences and critics in many of his works, and which are put to good use here in an original, multifaceted, acute and profound story, both in terms of its exploration of personal dynamics the relationship between a father and a son, as well as in its historical and political analysis, its often dazzling reflections on power and its mechanisms, its considerations on the development of the so-called First Republic, and its ability to recount how the public sphere was, for the men of those years, a reflection of the private sphere, and vice versa. What makes this book remarkable is its ability to blend the two dimensions (private and family, historical and political) in a new form, where one passes naturally from one to the other, enriching the reading with implications, suggestions, and emotional, intellectual, and political stimuli. This is the story of a father and (much less) of a son. The story of a small mystery that tied their destinies together. And the story of an epilogue that was never found. Preface by Filippo Ceccarelli.