Being twenty in Turin in 1952 means dancing at parties to the music of a gramophone while it's still light outside, aping the boredom of existentialists, discovering America, smoking Nazionali cigarettes. Being twenty In Turin In 1952 means becoming reconciled to the world after the wartime fear, staying late in cafés after the bombings, chasing the superfluous after privations and pain. But for Daniel Avigdor, a Jew, being twenty in Turin in 1952 also means knowing about the anguish of the survivors who pursue inaccessible answers while, as the Jewish saying goes, God laughs. That afternoon, Daniel must procure a medicine because his father, old Leone Avigdor, once feared and inaccessible as a god, is dying. So he must be quick about it, and their usual pharmacy is closed. Still, Daniel chooses to lose himself in the streets of his city amidst memories, the present and the vague impression of a tomorrow that flows in the blood of a twenty year old on a magnificent spring day. Daniel's peregrinations have the characteristics of an unusual quest, an anti-quest that leads the protagonist along an apparently casual itinerary of encounters and thoughts. The pre-war reality, his father's fabric shop, the lie and humiliation of living like rats to avoid deportation, then again, school, friends, girls. And his very beautiful and mysterious mother whom Daniel loved madly, and of whom his father was madly jealous. But where was she going, made-up and elegant as always, that afternoon In 1943 when the Nazis took her away? Probably to her lover. When the truth shows its face, it is that of an unexpected stranger. Daniel doesn't know it, but he is about to be abandoned once again and will end up finding himself in that pain. A moving story, a truth revealed, a surprising epilogue, all in a novel that rewrites an ancient, universal theme with original vigor.