Intense, sad, profound, dense. It's this and much more the book Tutti i Morti Volano in Alto by Joachim Meyerhoff
Reading some lines from the reviews on the back cover this one was presented as a humoristic book, but it is not that, forget it and honestly I didn't pick up this book for that purpose, but because I know a lot of people who spent a year in the USA and one of them lived at just 2 km from us. We live in a rural area in center of Italy, and it says a lot when someone leave for a distant land like the USA returning with more culture and with a language learned very well.
It's a book this one in grade to penetrate feelings, sensations, moods, little stories, big events, (the death of Elvis Presley while the protagonist was in the USA), changes with strong lucidity and with a honest, frank point of view; without omitting anything but restituting an imagine of the reality absolutely adorable.
Narrated by the young Joachim, in first person, precisely by the man he became, this book will describe his being a teen-ager, his sensations, with the first important discoveries and with an electrifiying opportunity: to afford to the USA for a year thanks to money of his grand-parents.
Joachim is not exactly great at school in fact. He has his problems, he loves baseball and when he goes to Amburg for the selection he thinks that no one will pick him up.
All the rest of that teenagers, from the city seemed to be born for a trip of a year in the USA. That people, as will tell Joachim sounded to be born for that. Their future was clear; he could visualize their parentes; their clothes, their shoes talked for them.
Where the hell did he want to go?
Joachim was a provincial, someone who didn't care for the appearance; his shoes weren't spectacular or of a special brand; his shirt didn't speak of a great brand, his hair not so nice and with a cut defined like the one of that teen-agers.
He was someone who could forget cities like New York or Los Angeles, because, he thought, no one would have chosen him for these destinations. So he added the most improbable answers. Very devoted to church (not true); ready to sleep in bedrooms with other children of the American Family, and so on.
With much joy and surprise one day he discovered that he was chosen for his American adventure and that the city, very little, located in Wyoming was Laramie. A little center; what Joachim at the end wanted to go thanks to his answers.
His American family was composed by Stan, Hazel and three children; the rudest one Don; he couldn't tolerate the presence of Joachim and did all his best for keeping his permancence in the USA unwanted.
The rest of the family welcomed Joachim with affection.
The couple had grown up children and the arrival of Joachim meant to Stan new life in an apparent still empty nest (their children all gone somewhere else in the while and back only after more than a week from his arrival.)
The scholastic topics picked up by Joachim not too strong or serious, english apart.
He also visited a jail and once he would have received also the visit per months once returned home of a prisoner who had killed two people.
While he had just spent three months in the USA a terrible shocking news devastated his family. His brother, the one who would have become a doctor died in a car incident.
The narrator remembers that to him his brother is still alive and when someone ask him how many brothers he has, he replies two, defining also the profession of his brother: "He is a doctor."
This one was a destructive pain.
Nothing had sense anymore. Food, furniture in a room, time, people.
It was as if that sufferance had impregnated their existences; as if it would have spoken for them.
His parents were devastated. They were all orphan of a fantastic son and brother.
They all knew that.
Joachim couldn't stay there; it was too suffocating. He decided of leaving again for the USA. His dad asked him if he wouldn't have considered the option of staying but...
Joachim was too tired of crying and consoling and sleeping and mourning and thinking at the meaning of life...He wanted to live.
Better...What he did was to try to search for that normality that in his family, in North of Germany at the moment couldn't find anymore.
The arrival in the USA was characterized this time by new impulse, by the discovery of a girl, a first American love and by many adventures and his return the one he had dreamed about.
Without forgetting that, one of his brothers, now, remains much more young than him, because time passed by for everyone but not for his beloved brother.
Incredibly touching, I loved this book so badly; I cried a lot as well and I hope to read also the first book by Meyerhoof.
I suggest it to everyone, including to all that students interested to spend a year in the USA.
Tutti i Morti Volano in Cielo was relaxing under many other aspects because the boy afforded in the USA before 9/11 and before cell phones, smart phone and PCS, so giving us back a beautiful, wonderful picture of that beloved world we sometimes miss so badly because it was real.
Highly recommended.
I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of this book.
Anna Maria Polidori
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