Is it possible that an elderly father is more reckless than his son? And is it possible to be ecstatic in exactly the same way whether touching the sweet softness of Culatello, a cured pork salami - the finest of all - or caressing the sweet curves of a female bum? And is it possible to be so impassioned by your own farming business that you’d do the craziest things to make it survive? The protagonist of this novel, Michele, a disillusioned musician who fled to Rome in search of success, finds himself flung into the midst of tragicomic adventures when he is called back to run his father’s business, crushed between urgent financial matters and the never appeased rancour of a village in the Parma lowlands. In a world dominated by persistent fogs, an atmosphere loaded with humidity from the river Po, and food and wine specialty fairs entirely dedicated to “King Hog”, Michele is plunged into a job about which he understands little or nothing, and tries to cope with as best he can. His tranquil life will be turned topsy-turvy and all the projects he had in mind will shatter against the wall of his father’s personality, leaving him with no way out. The Oedipal conflict pops malignly up again and for Michele everything seems lost, but an unexpected event overturns his existence once more, bringing him find love and even taking him across the sea to a new life and a different idea about his hated genitor. Charlie Gnocchi tells a provincial story full of humanity and entertainment, an inside view of a world that, at bottom, knows how to enjoy simple and healthy things. Culo e culatello* *culo in Italian is bum, thus the play on words.