Why a Booktrail?
1940s, 2000s: Via Gemito tells the story of a changing Naples
The House on Via Gemito
What you need to know before your trail
The modest apartment in Via Gemito smells of paint and white spirit. The living room furniture is pushed up against the wall to create a make-shift studio, and drying canvases must be moved off the beds each night.
Federí, the father, a railway clerk, is convinced of possessing great artistic talent. If he didn’t have a family to feed, he’d be a world-famous painter. Ambitious and frustrated, genuinely talented but full of arrogance and resentment, his life is marked by bitter disappointment. His long-suffering wife and their four sons bear the brunt.
It’s his first-born who, years later, will sift the lies from the truth to tell the story of a man he spent his whole life trying not to resemble.
Locations
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Naples
The descriptions of Naples in the book are heart-breaking as they are scenes of war and poverty, destruction and death. The start of the book shocks and pulls you into this wartime place. You would not want to visit in real life, but it’s there to show just what this stunning city was once like. How it was to live, to survive.
As the book progresses and the family move to Via Gemito, the Naples we know and love today comes through. However, this is a story of hardship and more. You see the city turn into something more gentle and inspiring.
BookTrail Boarding Pass:
Destination: Naples Author/guide: Domenico Starnone Departure Time: 1940s/2000s
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