Publishers Weekly
★ 05/03/2021
A pilgrimage in the footsteps of Italy’s national hero grounds a meditation on the country’s character in this soulful historical travelogue. British novelist and Italophile Parks (Italian Ways) retraces the 400-mile-long retreat of revolutionary general Giuseppe Garibaldi from Rome to the Adriatic coast in 1849, during which he lost his army of 4,000 men to desertion, fighting, and capture by French, Spanish, and Austrian forces. His vivid retelling casts the history in a romantic light, as he recounts how Garibaldi held together his volunteers with the dream of Italian nationhood, and the assistance of his magnetic wife, Anita, who died at their journey’s end. Parks weaves in a disenchanted modern counterpoint as he and his partner trudge alongside roads full of roaring traffic and encounter industrial blight next to avant-garde art parks and touristy cafés (“The garibaldini would have been out of town in a matter of minutes, whereas we’re still walking through a suburban haze of carbon monoxide after two and a half hours”). Contrary to Garibaldi’s vision of generous, liberal solidarity, Parks’s Italy often feels atomized, alienated, and resentful of immigrants. Even so, Parks’s elegant, wry prose saves the story from tipping into despair. This gripping account of Italy’s visionary past serves as a revealing window into its clouded present. (July)
Jeremy Cliffe
"A dream for armchair globetrotters…Parks intertwines his travelogue with thought-provoking contemplation on leadership, history, memory, politics, idealism and the true meaning of love of country."
Cory Oldweiler
"Garibaldi's heroic journey and Parks' enthusiastic guide make this a trip well worth taking."
Michael Upchurch
"A chronicle of wiliness in defeat and the unlikely escape of a shrinking ragtag volunteer army…[T]he central point of how a seeming military debacle gradually became viewed as 'a glorious act of resistance' is powerfully made."
Liesl Schillinger
"[An] utterly transporting chronicle."
Jenny McPhee
"A fresh, intriguing, environmentally sensitive, oddly endearing account."
Gregory Dowling
"A rattlingly good story….Mr. Parks’s passionate engagement with this story lends this travelogue a special quality."
Kirkus Reviews
2021-04-28
The British author and Italian culture expert retraces Italian resistance fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi's flight toward freedom for a contemporary audience.
Parks set himself a daunting task in this travel memoir, challenging both his physical stamina and literary gifts. In the summer of 2019, he and his partner, Eleonora, set out to retrace by foot the flight of the charismatic leader of Italy’s 19th-century unification movement after his troops lost a critical fight to hold Rome for liberation. Parks and Eleonora tried to follow the exact 400-mile route of Garibaldi and his exhausted men—and at the same time of year, blazing July. They hiked up to 20 miles per day from Rome toward Garibaldi’s destination: the Adriatic Sea, where he and his troops hoped to escape three separate armies (French, Austrian, and Spanish) called upon by Pope Pius IX to capture them. Parks followed his route along traffic-clogged freeways; through beautiful Tuscany, “an English dream of quaintness in a Mediterranean climate”; and over Italy’s Apennine Mountains. They met clueless tourists, vicious dogs, and Italians disgusted with the tarting up of their historic districts for the tourist trade. The author does an exemplary job weaving together different historical accounts of the march, and he brings Garibaldi’s charisma, determination, and desperation to vivid life. He is less successful at interpreting the present. His descriptive passages of the Italian countryside sing, but he provides little context for the politics and economy of contemporary Italy. After eavesdropping, he re-creates the overheard conversation without follow- up or amplification. Italy’s beautiful old villages, he notes, have been wantonly transformed into “centres of upmarket culture,” and his overheard speakers seem to agree. Is there a counterpoint to this argument? Not in this book. Students of historic and contemporary Italy will enjoy the author’s vivid revival of Garibaldi’s ordeal, and his dry wit is on full display, but he missed an opportunity to make this dramatic story more accessible to general readers.
An account that ably retraces the flight of a revolutionary but offers limited insights into Italy's present.
