Eravamo immortali

Stefano and Nando, the two “immortal” friends in this novel, come from afar. They traverse sixty years of our history and, like Homeric heroes, move beneath the walls of Troy, which are, in turn, the dramatic retreat from Russia in 1943, the workers’ struggles at Fiat, the battle for a new prosperity, and the revolt of the younger generations. Stefano and Nando fight, for better or worse, for an idea of the world that grows with them, their loves, their families, and that never forgets the friendship that binds them. They belong to the people and it is among the people that they develop the wealth of emotions that has marked them. They both start out as promising cyclists, and they remain tied to that dream on two wheels as if it were the horizon of a challenge that seems never-ending. Stefano and Nando belong to the people, and “Eravamo immortali” is a true popular novel, multiplying passions and rifts, moving characters and destinies, sliding along the chain of years until the two friends find themselves faced with increasingly clear responsibilities, including the last, enormous one, which concerns the meaning of their friendship. You enter this story and immediately start running; and at every narrative turn, you find yourself anxious to know which path will call you to participate, to know, to be moved. Praise be to Cassardo, a writer who is not afraid and, like a river in flood, puts the reasons for storytelling at the service of our identity, which comes from the past and looks beyond the present.