In 1950 – the exact halfway point of the 1900s, the last century of the Millenium – a child is born. His name is Luigi and he is only a few months old when his parents decide, in their little flat in Naples between the sea and a refinery, to move to Rome. There, in the capital, the Sixties arrive with a bang, with music hailing from foreign lands that, with its pulsing and ominous beats, seems to tell of a future that is already pounding at the door.

Then great friendship, first love, new idols who are born and die just as quickly, the widespread and frantic desire for change. And for revolution. A revolution that, to the tune of rock chords and new instruments, with hair long and t-shirts tie-dyed, finally comes to life at the end of the decade, amid protests, trips to faraway and exotic lands, and hope. Promises of an absolute and dazzling freedom that incites vertigo and that young people and music have never before experienced.

Luigi grows up, gets married, works on writing and political endeavors, immersed in an environment of epochal change. But drugs and the sudden onslaught of violence in the Seventies undermine those dreams. He comes against his first bout of disillusionment in the shadows of an irretrievable time, as Luigi’s story intersects with those of extraordinary men, from Andrea Pazienza to Freak Antoni, from Paolo Pietrangeli to Rino Gaetano.

Twentieth Century Boy. When We Stormed the Heavens is the debut narrative of Gino Castaldo, Italy’s biggest and most beloved music journalist, a memoir in which the desires, hopes and troubles of an age both near and remote are revived, thanks to the magic of storytelling.

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