Ragazzo

Two teenagers are alternately the victims and the perpetrators of violence, which is the common language at school and at home. In his new novel set in Maremma, Naspini draws the outlines of a psyche that is shattered into pieces by suffering and solitude.
Every day, Giacomo and Matteo travel between their fishing village and their school in the nearest town. They navigate the jungle of adolescence like two animals in a symbiotic relationship: Matteo takes on the mockery they face for being different and tries to protect his friend from what he sees as dangers, while Giacomo pushes him to grow up. In both cases, their perspective is warped by the environment they live in.
Giacomo gets his hands on his father’s old gun, triggering a series of events that cause the boys to drift apart; Matteo is terrified that his friend’s infatuation with the beautiful Corinna Gentileschi will condemn him to loneliness. They later find themselves so close that each is lost in the other’s contours, with the symphony of adolescence behind them and a pool of blood before them.
Ragazzo is a raw and alienating story about the complexity of finding your own place in a hostile world.