Italy in the 1970s was a gloomy, troubled nation, suddenly awakened from the intoxication of well-being, vitality, and easy wealth of the economic boom . If we could take a time machine and return to that period, we would still find prosperity and cars, but also abundant smog and pollution, so much social anger and violence in the city streets. We would find the long-lasting aftermath of the protests of 1968, which had shaken an Italy that was still very traditionalist and bigoted, despite the transformations of the economic boom. The desire for change of the late 1960s, however, had by then crystallized into a dull rage against institutions and adults who defended privileges and permitted discrimination and inequality. It was an rage that turned sons and daughters against their mothers and, above all, their fathers. That Italy would scare us a little, because it was marked, in the streets of big cities, by ambushes and beatings, but also by so many robberies and kidnappings. In the 1970s, in fact, police forces focused on fighting terrorism and containing political violence. Common crime thus had free rein, and urban centers filled with clandestine gambling dens, prostitution, and drugs. And the Mafia extended its tentacles beyond Sicily.
This climate of insecurity and urban violence is at the heart of La vita mala (Neri Pozza, 2025, 352 pp., also available as an e-book), a novel with a distinctly noir tone set in Milan and co-written by Pierangelo Sapegno and Gianluca Tenti. In La vita mala, we find the ferocious Milan of Giorgio Scerbanenco's short stories and the 1970s crime films, with ruthless criminals and disillusioned, trigger-happy cops. However, the novel is also a collection of painful stories. Painful stories of lost loves, of dreams that become nightmares, of two best friends who become sworn enemies.
It all began in 1971: the Years of Lead, but also of kidnappings, bloody robberies and street killings, the years in which a young man from the suburbs with no art or part - Dennis Talamone, known as "the Rooster" - began his climb to the Kingdom of the Night, to become its absolute master.
A dreamed-of, longed-for, and re-enacted rise to prominence, starting from his criminal underworld, as well described in the book: "Until that day, Gallo was someone who could be intimidating, but who didn't lead. He'd started by throwing punches in the street, committing petty thefts from homes or jewelry stores, once even a butcher's shop. He beat people up to collect debts. It was petty business. He wanted more." All the protagonists of a mad and violent world move around Gallo's ruthless and bloody rise: his loyal friends and those who will betray him, merciless hitmen and bandits, mafia bosses, criminal priests, deviant members of power and terrorists, gamblers, famous singers and actors, high-class prostitutes, aggressive reporters, good cops and bad cops. A world where innocence is impossible and where even love, in the shadow of absolute evil, seems to find its greatness only in defeat.