Last Summer in the City: A Novel

By Gianfranco Calligarich, Howard Curtis and André Aciman

The first novel from award-winning author Gianfranco Calligarich to be published in English, Last Summer in the City is a witty and despairing classic of Italian literature. Biting, tragic, and endlessly quotable, this translated edition features an introductory appreciation from longtime fan New York Times bestselling author André Aciman.

In a city smothering under the summer sun and an overdose of la dolce vita, Leo Gazarra spends his time in an alcoholic haze, bouncing between run-down hotels and the homes of his rich and well-educated friends, without whom he would probably starve. At thirty, he’s still drifting: between jobs that mean nothing to him, between human relationships both ephemeral and frayed. Everyone he knows wants to graduate, get married, get rich—but not him. He has no ambitions whatsoever. Rather than toil and spin, isn’t it better to submit to the alienation of the Eternal City, Rome, sometimes a cruel and indifferent mistress, sometimes sweet and sublime? There can be no half measures with her, either she’s the love of your life or you have to
leave her.

First discovered by Natalia Ginzburg, Last Summer in the City is a forgotten classic of Italian literature, a great novel of a stature similar to that of The Great Gatsby or The Catcher in the Rye. Gianfranco Calligarich’s enduring masterpiece has drawn comparisons to such writers as Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, and Jonathan Franzen and is here made available in English for the first time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Aug 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9780374600167

Gianfranco Calligarich

Gianfranco Calligarich was born in Asmara, Eritrea and grew up in Milan before moving to Rome where he worked as a journalist and screenwriter. He wrote many successful TV shows for Rai, the national public broadcasting company of Italy, and founded the Teatro XX Secolo in 1994. He is author of many novels, including La malinconia dei Crusich, which was the winner of the Viareggio Rèpaci Prize. Last Summer in the City is the first of his novels to be translated into English.

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Reviews for Last Summer in the City

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Brand new first time in English of a 1973 Italian novel.Not my kind of thing. Leo is turning 30 and lazy (not too lazy to party though). He has no drive or desire to accomplish. He claims to be poor, but always has enough money to get by--often by mooching off friends, visiting at dinner, housesitting etc. He wants to marry and wants to get a good job but even when opportunities are handed to him, he walks out and decides he "can't". Most of his friends are wealthy or at least employed--and he definitely did not grow up poor. His parents and married-with-kids sisters still live around Milan.This reminds me of The Sun Also Rises and every other wealthy-20-somethings-do- nothing book. But in Rome.