The Wall Street Journal discovers Bari with Gianrico Carofiglio’s books: «The city of his novels is the most authentic»

OfErika Cuscito

The journalist Tom Downey in the footsteps of the lawyer Guido Guerrieri and Marshal Pietro Fenoglio: «The novels of the former prosecutor are better than a guide»

«Fenoglio had taught me well», or, “Fenoglio taught me well”. The famous marshal and the lawyer Guido Guerrieri become “the tourist guides” of Tom Downeyjournalist of Wall Street Journal. The characters created by Gianrico Carofigliotogether with their stories and their tales, were a source of great information for Downey, since «former prosecutor Gianrico Carofiglio’s novels can offer a deeper understanding of the Italian city of Bari than you’ll find in a guidebook», we read in the newspaper article. And this is precisely the underlying theme of his journey: the use of “detective novels” (detective novels) rather than tourist guides and advice on social media since, in this way, “you could discover dark and surprising corners of cities like Los Angeles, Bari, Rio de Janeiro and Dublin.”

On the streets of the lawyer Guerrieri

Downey’s journey begins right from the Apulian capital, in the footsteps of Guido Guerrierithe protagonist of With eyes closedwhich the journalist of the American magazine got to know thanks to the English version of the novel, A walk in the dark. «As soon as I arrived in Bari, a city in Puglia, the heel of the Italian boot – says Downey – I joined the nocturnal crowds of bars, cafes and ice cream parlors on the edge of the old town», proceeding with the story precisely through the words of Carofiglio’s detective lawyer: «In late spring, when it was already very late, we walked back through the historic center, now completely deserted and full of strong, dirty, disturbing and beautiful smells». Although the city has changed, there are details that remain imprinted and immutable. Guerrieri’s Bari can be glimpsed and perceived from the «ssound and the smell of sausages sizzling in a pan», together with the «play of street lamps and shadows along the narrow alleys». This is the true essence of the city that Downey tries to breathe.
Hence the advice of forget the usual guides to museums, hotels and restaurants for tourists, given that «detective novels get to the heart of a city, allowing you to feel its pulse, to understand where its inhabitants come from and how they spend their time. Much of a place can be revealed from its underbelly”, and consequently what better interpreters of “criminal geography, as Carofiglio calls it, in the whole world” could there be, if not the characters of the author and former public prosecutor engaged for years in the fight against the mafia in Puglia? The author knows Carofiglio, his past and, above all, everything he taught him thanks to his novels.

Marshal Fenoglio’s Bari

His stay in the Apulian capital, in fact, continues in the footsteps of another great protagonist: the marshal Pietro Fenoglio. Downey carries with him the lessons learned from The cold summer, from 2016 and so «inspired by Fenoglio’s ability to find what lies beyond the surface, I went in search of a glass of wine» remembering the instructions on «recruiting informants». And the journalist manages to do it, how? Thanks to Vittorio Pugliese, a natural winemaker who he met thanks to the owner of “La Staffa Enoteca”, a wine bar. «He opened a bottle and while the rain fell we spoke in a low voice about its complexity and then about the city. Fenoglio had taught me well».

Around the world with book characters

His journey then continues around the world, always accompanied by these figures who, despite being fictitious, Downey brings with him as “perceivable” traveling companions. TO Rio de Janeiro there are the characters of Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza, which will lead him to see attractions such as Christ the Redeemer and the beaches of Copacabana with new eyes, “but you won’t see them through the starry lens of a tourist.” Benjamin Black, pseudonym of the “literary superstar John Banville”, allows Downey to learn about the past of the city of Dublin through the “penetrating gaze” of his characters. Finally his journey ends at Los Angeleswhere «combining the noir aesthetics of the books by Raymond Chandler With the city’s multicultural present, Steph Cha’s novels provide a guide to an off-the-beaten-path Los Angeles that still exudes the romance of the big screen without letting go of reality.”

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