“Romagnoli guides us like the skillful writer he is, hiding continuously the ancient and complex art of the novel behind the rarefied simplicity of the reportage.” La Repubblica

“Life is boring, but destiny is unpredictable. One writes rules, the other notes exceptions.”

The first love is a myth, the last love a chance for salvation. It rekindles joy, redeems suffering, gives meaning to life. To be able to live it requires more than learning how to choose the other, you need to learn how to give the best of yourself. This book describes unavoidable paths and necessary choices. These are embodied by three main characters: a man losing his sight, who returns to the light of the beginning; the author’s father, who discovers the art of marriage just before it’s too late; and a man nearly 100 years old who remarries and returns to being “deliriously happy,” as we are all entitled to be. Around them philosophers dance on the ashes of disaffection, James Dean invites us to trust our illusions, and the threads of all the relationships we have lived intertwine to eventually tie us into one. “Life is boring, but destiny is unpredictable. One writes rules, the other notes exceptions.” Knowing how to transform ourselves into those exceptions pushes us towards our goal without fear of getting there, because indeed, “we will know how to play until it gets dark,” and even beyond, endlessly.