The story begins as it ends, with the main character contemplating his life on a beach, not far from Rome.

The reader, not knowing what has brought him here, remains unaware of the wider context until, not even 200 pages later, the narrator returns to the seaside. Now, the reader can clearly see how the book’s beginning also was the end.

Wriitng the book (original title in Italian: L'ultima estate in città) as a circle is a sophisticated way of constructing a story, and this sort of refined elegance defines the entire book, taking place in Rome during a few months in the late 1960s.

The bars, dinner parties and late night-outings are all described with the same finesse, its cast generally well-educated and witty, albeit also often suffering from dark thoughts and battling alcoholism. 

At the core of the story is Leo Gazzara, a young man who left his hometown of Milan for work in the capital.

Finding himself unemployed, he spends his days drinking and his nights driving around in his beat-up Alfa Romeo.

On the evening of his thirtieth birthday, he meets a young woman whom he soon falls in love with.

The beginning of this love story will soon turn out to also be the beginning of the end.

Another main character is the city of Rome, acting not only as a backdrop but almost as a personality in the story:

“Rome was our city, she tolerated us, flattered us, and even I ended up realizing that in spite of the sporadic work, the weeks when I went hungry, the damp, dark hotel rooms with their yellowing furniture squeaking as if killed and desiccated by some obscure liver disease, I couldn’t live anywhere else. And yet, when I think back on those years, I have clear memories of a small number of places, a small number of events, because Rome by her very nature has a particular intoxication that wipes out memory. She’s not so much a city as a wild beast hidden in some secret part of you. There can be no half measures with her, either she’s the love of your life or you have to leave her, because that’s what the tender beast demands, to be loved. That’s the only entrance toll you’ll have to pay from wherever you’ve come, from the green, hilly roads of the south, or the straight, seesawing roads of the north, or the depths of your own soul. If she’s loved, she’ll give herself to you whichever way you want her, all you need to do is go with the flow and you’ll be within reach of the happiness you deserve. You’ll have summer evenings glittering with lights, vibrant spring mornings, café tablecloths ruffled by the wind like girls’ skirts, keen winters, and endless autumns, where she’ll seem vulnerable, sick, weary, swollen with shredded leaves that are silent underfoot. You’ll have dazzling white steps, noisy fountains, ruined temples, and the nocturnal silence of the dispossessed, until time loses all meaning, apart from the banal aim of keeping the clock hands turning. In this way you too, waiting day after day, will become part of her. You too will nourish the city. Until one sunny day, sniffing the wind from the sea and looking up at the sky, you’ll realize there’s nothing left to wait for.”

The romantic subtlety of the language is matched with a streak of melancholy, clearly noticeable already from the novel’s first line, but gradually growing in strength, until it turns into pronounced sadness.

In the end, there is no more to lose, not even love. Upon publication, it was soon considered a cult novel, and today it is considered an important piece of the Italian literary legacy.