The American Roots of an Italian Gentleman (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9789090424620)

"I came to flee a history that was dying and found a life that was struggling to be born."

Briano is a man out of time. Born into the splendor of the Italian Nobility, he is a member of the "Nearly-Past"-a generation caught between the rigid traditions of their ancestors and the scorched earth of a post-war world they no longer recognize.

Seeking an escape from the "gilded cage" of Portofino, Forte dei Marmi, Capri, Cortina d'Ampezzo, and the suffocating weight of his heritage, Briano sheds his "title" and travels to the raw and unforgiving frontier of Nova Scotia. There, amidst the black spruce and the biting Atlantic frost, the Count becomes a Lumberjack. Under the pseudonym Adriano, he joins a brotherhood of "disinherited" laborers-Venetian migrants, war-weary veterans, and silent Finns-who measure a man's worth not by his lineage, but by the precision of the saw.

The American roots of an Italian Gentleman is a lucid meditation on identity, labor, and the enduring power of memory. From the smoke-filled bunkhouses of Camp Five to the salt-slicked rafts of the North River docks, Briano discovers that the only true nobility is the dignity of the human spirit in the face of harsh nature.

Part immigrant odyssey, part philosophical memoir, this is the story of a man who went into the forest to bury a ghost and emerged as a witness to the beauty of the struggle.