Apocalypse in slippers (Apocalisse in pantofole)

A surreal novel of contemporary setting where a strange end of the world is narrated, announced by singular climatic factors: the wind stops blowing and the rain falling, temperatures increase everywhere, water and food are rationed, the sky becomes as pink as a huge sugared almond, oceans dry out. Yet, humankind keeps doing what it has always been doing, supporting flaws careless of consequences of its actions, living as if everything is happening was completely normal. Main characters are three childhood friends, nowadays aged forty: Edoardo, winner of a reality show (fist person narrator) who makes a living as TV pundit; Giovanni, corrupt council member of a small town; Michele, a writer that became famous only after he tried to murder his father. Other characters move around them, a kind of chorus integrating the story with a varied humanity in hard search of any safety from the disaster, rather understood as mess of disastrous existence than real apocalypse. There’s a girl – Ariela – who wants to avenge herself through Edoardo on who seduced and then left her. Monks take advantage of shortage of fresh food in order to sell fruit cocktails for its weight in gold. “Literal” terrorists flood bookstore shelves with animal urine to protest against bestsellers that promote a flattened and mediocre culture. Vladimiro, a circus tamer, who – after the disappearance of the animals from the towns – takes the last old and battered tiger on a leash and hits the bottle with Edoardo, sarcastically philosophizing about love and death. Then, there are two characters that can be defined co-protagonists: Dorothy, a woman going back every year to the sea in search of her husband that actually disappeared in that holiday place years before; she smokes joints and has a short love story with Edoardo, and she is sensual and ironic. And there’s above all Corso, leitmotiv of the story, who appears as a fifty-year-old in the preface, and years after the beginning of the apocalypse rides a bike towards a mountain where an old wiseman – called the “inventor” – lives, being in search of a final response on what is happening to the world. Then, he also appear in the story in a young boy’s shoes that is afraid he dreamt he was an adult. In the end, he comes back in the epilogue, when he finally gets the answer he was searching for. He can count on a second opportunity, starting his life again from his childhood. But when he becomes a child again, he realizes that the repetition of his life is exactly the same as the original one and he understands that there’s no way to lead a different existence compared to the one he had by fate. Everything is narrated with irony and mild manners and dialogues that turn the narration rich and unpredictable, including different comical situations, are used. A story talking about important topics, such as destiny, free will, coincidence, second opportunities, love and death, but told with lightness and amusement.

Francesco Franceschini was born in 1967 in Narni. He has a degree in Modern literature and teaches Italian literature, History and Philosophy in a private school. He has published two novels edited by Verbavolant of Siracusa: “Apocalypse in slippers” (2011) and ” The most important fourth person”(2013). He keeps a blog (sdraiatosuibinari.blogspot.it) that was visualized by over 35000 people. In 2008 he took a diploma in dubbing at Gastone Moschin and Marzia Ubaldi’s School. In may 2015 he was the promoter, together other people, of the “creative writing laboratory” where he teaches about techniques and contents of storytelling. Since 1999, he has been a radio speaker and responsible for TNA radio programming.

Series: Admaiora!

Genre: fiction

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