Spit three times /

In this languid coming-of-age saga set in a rural Italian village, a group of indolent, disaffected teenagers, including introspective narrator Guido and his thuggish friend Grisu, spend their days desultorily drinking, smoking dope, and creating minor havoc. Flashbacks depict the boys' childhood, when their aimless days spent together seem little different from their rudderless adolescence. Occasionally their paths cross with the Stančičs, a Romani family who after WWII fled communist Yugoslavia ,and in particular, their disheveled, near-feral daughter, Loretta. The uneasy relationship between the townspeople and the "gypsies" is a persistent undercurrent throughout the book; at one point, one of Loretta's brothers delivers a chilling monologue detailing the Nazis' persecution of the Romani. The meandering story, which clocks in at a hefty 500-plus pages, brings to mind a rural, impoverished, and fuzzily mystical version of Fellini's I Vitelloni. Reviati's feathery drawings are even wispier than the story; the characters' indistinct faces and simply outlined figures reflect the vagueness of their lives.

Haunting and dreamlike, Reviati's tome threads together the coming-of-age story of Guido, a teenage slacker who struggles to express himself, and the saga of the Stançiçs, a Roma family living on the margins of their small Italian town. Guido and his thuggish friends taunt ferocious, unkempt Loretta Stançiç. When Guido's friend stumbles upon a battered Loretta in the woods and finds a newborn baby under her skirt, he cuts the umbilical cord and saves the infant's life, only to be run off by Loretta's suspicious brothers. The thread picks up years later, when Guido hears that Loretta had three children, all lost to social services. One of the Stançiç brothers interrupts Loretta and Guido's vignettes to give a primer on the treatment of the Roma during the Holocaust: at least 500,000 killed, many more sterilized as the subject of eugenic "studies." Throughout, Reviati probes the intersection of history and memory, composing in fragments that double back on themselves. Reviati's pen-and-ink lines are confident: shadows heavy, faces half blank but elegantly realized. Though searching for a plot through line is difficult at times, it's hard to discern whether that's due to translation, murky storytelling, or poetic intention. Nevertheless, those willing to slip into the town's mysteries will be rewarded by Reviati's stylish, brooding art, which captures the ache of losses small and large. (Apr.)