The latest addition to my website is Luca Rastello‘s Piove all’insù (The Rain’s Falling Up. The book is primarily set in the 1970s-80s in Turin, though told from the perspective of a later date, in the 2000s. It is narrated by Pietro Miasco. We first meet him as a young boy but, as he grows up, he becomes involved in politics, from spray-painting slogans on the walls to being involved in often violent demonstrations and sit-ins. However, we also see the background to all of this – the corrupt Italian government,the left-wing terrorist Red Brigades who will later kidnap and murder Prime Minister Aldo Moro, the Fascist MSI and the Communists. We even learn of a planned coup d’état by the army and police. Pietro is involved, not least because his father is an army officer seconded to the police, and he himself joins in with his friends on the left-wing side. Rastello gives us a very colourful account of Italy of that era as seen from the perspective of partisan participant.