You, Bleeding Childhood

Italy’s great chronicler of the macabre and hilariousterrors of growing up geeky arrives in English at last.Longbefore the latest vogue for autofiction, Michele Mari, one of Italy’s mostbeloved authors, cast his mind back to the days of his own childhood, and foundit crawling with monsters. Raisedon comic books and science fiction, the young Mari constructed an alternateuniverse for himself untouched by uncomprehending grownups or sadistic peers.Compared to the horrors of real life, Long John Silver and Cthulhu made forpositively cuddly company; but little boys raised by beasts may well grow upbeastly—or never grow up at all. Waking or sleeping, the obsessions of Mari’syouth seem to color his every adult thought. You, Bleeding Childhood standsas his first attempt to catalog this cabinet of wonders.Cultclassics since their first publication, these loosely connected stories standas the ideal introduction to an encyclopedic fantasist on a par with Kafka,Poe, and Borges.