Ferrovie del Messico (Mexican railways)

The story unravels over two years, from 1943 to 1945, with frequent flashbacks to a few decades before, between the late 1920s and the early 1930s. The protagonist is Francesco Magetti, nicknamed Cesco, member of the Italian Republican Railway Guard of Asti, city that at the time was part of the Italian Social Republic. Cesco receives some orders from higher up – from very high up – demanding him to draw a railway map of Mexico where, according to the nazis, is a mysterious city that hides a terrible weapon, “the ultimate weapon”. With no idea on how to start accomplishing this task, Cesco begins by looking for some sources to get some information, and especially a very rare book entitled “Historia poética y pintoresca de los ferrocarriles en México. Tilde, a librarian, helps him out throughout this feat and he falls hopelessly in love with her. With a taste for adventure, as well as for paradoxes and irony, Griffi interweaves the main plot with a myriad of other stories and an “encyclopaedic” list of characters: urban priests, partisans, nazis, the Führer and his companion, cartographers, brake operators-cum-poets, cemetery attendants, railway workers, and many others. The author creates an enthralling literary universe, full of creativity, using rich and extremely varied language that spans from jargon to scholarly language and spoken dialect.  

Ferrovie del Messico: un romanzo d’avventura (Mexican railways: an adventure story)
Gian Marco Griffi
Laurana Editore, 2023