Ferdinando Rivasecca is locked up in the seminary after a physical disability that affects his sexual activity. Instead of being discouraged he reacts with violence and premeditation, and prepares to conquer the world by taking advantage of his condition. Around him and his emancipation, the role played by the historical period in which he lives: post-unification Sicily.
Ferdinando works patiently to subvert social expectations and in fact the impairment that so seemed to have damaged him ends him up with three women.
Each, with different roles, will establish a series of difficult and ambiguous relationships. With a reaslim filtered by extraordinary imaginative skills Di Falco narrates of Diomira who just wants to scale the social ladder, Giulietta who is always looking for an impossible love, and Ofelia only interested in making money. Each of the four characters’ efforts will be useless for the changes caused by the war. And to come forward will be the new generation embodied by the young niece Sandra.
504 pages – Original language: Italian (VerbaVolant Edizioni, 2013).