The Bicycle Runner: A Memoir of Love, Loyalty, and the Italian Resistance - Hardcover

An exceptional copy; fine in an equally fine dw. Particularly and surprisingly well-preserved; tight, bright, clean and especially sharp-cornered. Literally as new.; 304 pages; Description: xi, 304 p. ; 22 cm. Subjects: Romagnoli, G. Franco --Childhood and youth. World War, 1939-1945 --Underground movements --Italy --Personal narratives, Italian --Rome --Guerilla couriers --Biography --History --1922-1945. Summary: Like all boys growing up in Rome during the 1930s and 1940s, the author was expected to join the Balilla--Italy's fascist Youth Organization. With political divisions running deep in the families within his palazzo, he and his motley group of friends were recruited into the underground Resistance. Racing around Rome on bicycles, they smuggled messages and weapons for the partisans. Later, the author fled to the Italian countryside and narrowly avoided German mop-up operations--despite being sold out by his most trusted of friends. But this is much more than a war story. Lyrical in language, rich in sentimentality, and possessing the magic of a Fellini film, Romagnoli's memoir is a charmingly told tale of the search for manhood and the bonds of family and friendship. --From publisher description.