{"product_id":"alfa-romeo-1300-and-other-miracles-9781609450830","title":"Alfa Romeo 1300 and Other Miracles","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA raucous debut novel of organized—and unorganized—crime. “A story that takes itself unseriously enough to be funny” (\u003ci\u003eThe Daily Beast\u003c\/i\u003e, “This Week’s Hot Reads”).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDiego is a forty-something car salesman with a talent for telling half-truths. Fausto sells watches over the phone. Claudio manages (barely) his family-owned neighborhood supermarket. The characteristic common to each of these three men is their abject mediocrity. Yet, mediocrity being the mother of outrageous invention, they embark on a project that would be too ambitious in scope for any single one of them, let alone all three together. They decide to flee the city and to open a rustic holiday farmhouse in the Italian countryside outside Naples.\u003cbr\u003eTheir misconceived endeavor would have been challenging enough for these three unlikely entrepreneurs, but when a local mobster arrives and demands they pay him protection money, things go from bad to worse. Now their ordinary (if wrongheaded) attempt to run a small business in an area that organized crime syndicates consider their own becomes a quixotic act of defiance.\u003cbr\u003eA “miraculous” Italian comedy that will have readers laughing out loud, \u003cem\u003eAlfa Romeo 1300 and Other Miracles\u003c\/em\u003e marks Fabio Bartolomei’s vivid debut.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An entertaining and humorous debut.”—\u003ci\u003eLa Repubblica\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A melancholy yet hopeful fable told with a smile.”—\u003ci\u003eInternazionale\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Left the kind of smile on my face that doesn’t go unnoticed and which people often mistake for a kind of facial paralysis.”—Valentina Aversano, \u003ci\u003eSetteperuno\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fabio Bartolomei","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48170149773563,"sku":"9781609450830","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0779\/3917\/9771\/files\/CoreSourceHub_edb1fc17-b3eb-4a08-a3ab-eef9db4c6fab.jpg?v=1770635793","url":"https:\/\/indiepubs.com\/products\/alfa-romeo-1300-and-other-miracles-9781609450830","provider":"IndiePubs","version":"1.0","type":"link"}