Il libro dei Baltimore by Joel Dicker

Let me write a completely different review in comparison to the other ones that in general I write, plenty of spoilers. 

I won't present you any spoiler with Il libro dei Baltimore by Joel Dicker. 

Well, there is a story behind: I think I requested a copy at the italian publishing house a year ago, but I hadn't received any answer. Weeks ago this book was heavily discounted in the magazine of my book club called Club per Voi and I decided of buying it. I read in a literary magazine a review months ago and I immediately imagined the big potentialities and beauty of this book. 

Plus...Yes: I know that portion of the USA, their universities, that cities, and I know that I would have recognized also the way of living of that American citizens.

I brought in my bedroom all the books arrived with this one. The idea was starting to read this one after a nap of 5 minutes for recharging my brain's batteries. But...I was tempted and I ended up reading and reading this book till the end, attracted as a magnet. 

I was expecting surely a great product, but this one is much more than what I was waiting. Absolutely. 

There is a great profoundity and knowledge of life dynamics; there is a powerful wisdom and a stunning capacity of filtering human nature digging in profoundity but leaving at the same time the reading light, fresh, captivating. 

In this case I ask to myself always what kind of books formed the author. Joel Dicker is a superb mind. 

Not only: to my point of view, if you are a potential writer, you should keep this book close to you or you should read it, because it is inspiring and will present a powerful lesson of creative writing; everything start in fact because of an exigency of the narrator, Marcus Goldman: the one  of telling the story of a family: in fact this one is The Book of the Baltimore.

You will laugh, you will smile, you will cry, you will feel sadness and your heart will beat more when close at the topic scene of the Tragedy. But promise me that you won't live the adventures of the Gang of the Goldmans just for waiting that moment. You must live the good and positive vibes of the Goldmans because they will love it. 

This book will present to you only good values and these good feelings, these good traits of the Goldmans will resonate till the end of the book and will remain with you as also will remain the characters.

I can't leave the Baltimore. I mean: I must do that, but their presence will stay close, because this book is a powerful one, where characters are created with strength, vigor, humility, compassion and understanding. It's a book that should be reread. 

You will meet real friendship for starting; but not a superficial one in grade of not making a difference, but one who will become cement for the life between the various protagonists of the story, Marcus, Hillel, Woody, Scott, Alexandra. 

A very good family the Goldmans with the differentiations that you find between two brothers and their existences. There are in facts the Goldmans of Baltimore, the richest part of the family and the ones of Montclair, New Jersey, more modest. Marcus the writer and narrator, is a Goldman of Montclair. He lives with a great admiration for his uncle Saul, his aunt Anita, his cousin Hillel and later Woody. The social status of his uncle, the house, his life-style but also the capacity of Saul of appreciating this nephew, created for this teenager an unforgettable atmosphere. Soon the Goldmans became their heroes.

It's a book about various families. There is solidity in all cases; good families with their little problems without big dramas, if not, sometimes misunderstandings. 

It's a book plenty of respect for the various generations involved in the story as you will read.

It's a book that will also treat thematic as bullism and violence and how to sorting out these problems: it's a book speaking at the heart, and giving you back calm, capacity of appreciating the good side of the existence, real values, memories and the importance of not losing the family-history behind, because people must breath their dignity and stories must be told.

We live of memories as said; people who touched our existences making the difference in better, places we visited, things we did. Sometimes it happens that life changes the cards on the table and this one is the beauty of the writer, because thanks to his work characters disappeared for the most diversified reasons can return prepotently in the scene, for staying for some while, for returning to make the difference although in a different way, for bringing back the past, with its smells, perfumes, sun, lightness, friendship, love, enthusiasm: it's maybe one of the most precious treat this one for a  a writer and for many other existences if stories are told and books become best-sellers. 

This book was also written thanks to the desire of one of the protagonists, Saul. He asked of repairing with the writing their family-story, narrating the facts, giving shape to all the truths existing in a family. No, not big and logorating secrets: but facts and tragedies that, put in order create the story of a family in its complexity and simplicity.

You will also meet sentiments like jealousy and certain crucial facts created ad hoc will be the cause of an escalation of problems and change of destiny. But, while you will continuing to read this book, you will understand that also that sentiment was born for certain reasons but that, after all, friendship and loyalty prevailed till the end as a distinctive trait of the Goldmans. 

At the end everything will be forgiven, forgotten, repaired, deleted.

Saul Goldman said at a certain point: 

"In this life is important loving, being loved and having the capacity of forgiving. Nothing else."

Stunning! Extraordinary. Exceptional book. Read it!

Anna Maria Polidori