It is a book that complements the previous one.
Set in the provinces, it recounts a squalid context inhabited by characters marked by a profound sadness over the bleakness of their dead-end lives: the group of violent youths predestined for crime or for an opaque existence like that of their parents; the family of Pietro, the protagonist, defined by the mother’s depression, the father’s violent alcoholism, and the brother’s mediocrity; Graziano Biglia, a squalid provincial vitellone who does not even realize he is in love with Flora; and Flora herself, who leads a hard but orderly life caring for her sick mother, until she meets Graziano, becomes pregnant with his child, and is subsequently abandoned, sinking into a state of depression and neglect: “didn’t you know, perhaps, that promises are made to be broken?”.
So Flora says on the terrible evening when Pietro kills her.
In this provincial setting, a friendship develops between Pietro and Gloria, who, despite coming from very different social backgrounds, forge a bond that cannot help but blossom into a love story.
Yet Pietro cannot endure it, and the murder of Flora constitutes, essentially, a way of escaping such a desolate environment.

I understood why he had done it.
To fight an evil thing inside us that grows and turns us into beasts.
He cut his life in two to be rid of it...
I didn’t want to end up like Mimmo...
I didn’t want to become like them

.
Only murder, a violent and irreversible act, shatters a situation that feels destined only to worsen.
The desolation lies not only in the present, but above all in the impossibility of a better future and a world devoid of prospects.
The style is highly effective, shaped by an ensemble of episodes and characters moving within the realm of chance and unpredictability.
The narrative pace is intensely sustained, making it a thoroughly compelling book to read.

I'll take you and carry you away