The Silver Book

About this book

In September 1974, a young English artist, in panicked flight from London, meets Danilo Donati, the magician of Italian cinema, in Venice. Donati, responsible for realising the spectacular visions of Fellini and Pasolini, is in Venice to produce sketches for Fellini’s Casanova. He sweeps Nicholas to Rome, into the looking-glass world of Cinecittà, where Casanova’s Venice will be assembled. The lovers then move to the set of Salò, Pasolini’s horrifying fable of fascism. Nicholas, however, has a secret that passes unseen amidst the constant illusion. Amidst the rising tensions of Italy’s ‘Years of Lead’, he acts as an accelerant, setting in motion a tragedy he didn’t intend. The Silver Book is a fictional account of real events, investigating the relationship between artifice and truth, illusion and reality, love and power.