Corrias, Pino. We’ll Sleep When We’re Old. New York: Atria Books, 2017. 304p. ISBN 978-1-5011-4495-0. $26. Fiction
DEBUT Italian TV producer and newspaper correspondent Corrias's first novel casts a dazzling spotlight on the corrupt world of Rome's contemporary movie aristocracy. Oscar Martello, an ambitious producer and multimillionaire from crimes past and present, vows to ruin everyone connected to his latest anti-Mafia movie if it turns out to be the flop he fears. To prevent a financial hit, he hires muckrakers to help with the film's promotion. He plans to secret his starring actress Jacaranda Rizzi and screenwriter friend Andrea Serrano in Paris, hoping the yellow press will jump on the story as either a Mafia-vengeance kidnaping or the romantic elopement of two lovers. His hopes are realized until unforeseen complications, including the Italian financial police, threaten to destroy his world. VERDICT Italian corruption hasn't gone out of style since Mario Puzo, the most recent cinematic example being Netflix's Suburra series (adapted from the homonymous novel by Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo de Cataldo). This macho world reappears in Corrias's work, but the focus is not on the lowlife but on aristocratic excess, less murderous yet no less venal. Note that women are treated with vulgar disdain.