Spit Three Times

(Paperback)

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A searing coming-of-age graphic novel reminiscent of Richard Ford's short stories that took the author more than seven years to create. "A masterpiece in black and white."--L'Humanite Part of the Selection Officielle Angoulame 2018 Winner of the Carlo Boscarato Prize 2016 Winner of the Lo Straniero Prize 2016 Winner of the Attilio Micheluzzi Prize 2017 for Best Writing Guido and his pals Moreno and Katango are rebels without a cause living in a rural town of the Po Valley, a forsaken corner of the Italian countryside turned peripheral wasteland. Disaffected students of the local vocational high school, they spend their days trying to get high as a way to forget about the bleak hopelessness around them. As children, they enjoyed being the sons of rural folks and the country seemed to them a never-ending reservoir of wonders. Now that they are almost finished with high school, they much prefer to drive to the nearby Rimini and its Riviera, check out its flashy dance clubs and end up wasted on its shores. Male friendship and camaraderie are paramount- the eroticism, the violence, the power struggles--it's all there on the page. Near Guido live the Stancic, a family of Romani who escaped the communist regime of Marshal Tito and settled there just after World War II. Running parallel to the protagonist's coming-of-age is the evolving relationship that the rural town has with this group of outsiders. The author is unsparing in his depiction of the townspeople's cruelty- there is a whole catalogue of ways in which Romani people are scapegoated and made victims of the most absurd prejudice. And yet, there are also many instances of solidarity between Guido's community and the Stancic. Spit Three Times is unlike any conventional graphic novel. Its language is more poetic than narrative. The dialogue is deeply suggestive and fraught with resonances and multiple meanings. Add to this the beautiful artwork and its every page is lyrical and moving. Reviati's first book in English, Spit Three Times is an extraordinary story of young men, disillusioned and trying to find their way, caught in the breach between post-war exuberance and the stagnation of the early 21st century.

Reviews

A masterpiece in black and white. LHumanit

"Youth is cast as a stark fable inSpit Three Timesby Davide Reviati (Seven Stories, translated by Jamie Richards), a restless, lyrical epic about three boys and their Roma neighbours set in a postwar Italian backwater. Theres an elegiac economy to Reviatis glorious panels, which show darkened rooms, fields that bleed into infinity and balletic figures convulsed in rage and ecstasy, as time slips through their fingers."

"Haunting and dreamlike, Reviatis tome threads together the coming-of-age story of Guido, a teenage slacker who struggles to express himself, and the saga of the Stanis, a Roma family living on the margins of their small Italian town...Throughout, Reviati probes the intersection of history and memory, composing in fragments that double back on themselves. Reviatis pen-and-ink lines are confident: shadows heavy, faces half blank but elegantly realized... [T]hose willing to slip into the towns mysteries will be rewarded by Reviatis stylish, brooding art, which captures the ache of losses small and large."Publishers Weekly

"Reviatis depiction of the life and cultural realities of the Roma, and the idea of a non-territorial nation, is a healthy corrective to the 21st centurys obsession with national borders and their military enforcement. His drawings and text evoke a palpable sense of nature, weather and a spatial freedom that crosses all borders." Ben Katchor, author and illustrator ofJulius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer

"IT IS A RARE pleasure to find a graphic novel where energetic black-and-white drawings and simple but eloquent textare intertwined with such harmony, each enhancing the other. ... Ultimately, Reviati delivers a penetrating view of the vicissitudes of developing into an adult in a world that is fraughtwith generations of mistrust, anger, and poverty and yet is suffused with the vibrant enchantment of being human."--Rita D. Jacobs, World Literature Today

"Spit Three Timesis a fairy tale/fable both ancient and modern at the same time. It sucks you in with its raw reality and then launches you into dreams, nightmares, and fantasies that have been embedded in our collective unconscious for ages upon ages. And above all, I believed every moment...every image...every word." Michael Imperioli,actor, screenwriter and author of the novel The Perfume Burned His Eyes

"Brings to mind a rural, impoverished, and fuzzily mystical version of Fellinis I
Vitelloni."Booklist

"In Davide Reviati's Italian graphic novel violence and vulnerability magnificently coexist." Le Monde

"Reviati, by allowing himself a large canvas, gives his characters all the room they need to bare their souls. ...this is authentic and passionate work." --Comics Grinder

"More than 500 pages and they read like they were less than half as many. Thanks to the impressive fluidity of the montage and the lightness of the writing." Internazionale

"Light on text, the story is balanced by the extraordinary illustrations. I for one am so accustomed to polished, finely detailed penmanship that at first glance the books illustrations look hurried and unfinished. In fact, they are simply free and loose, capturing a palpable buzzing energy that makes every page feel like its in motion. Although sometimes stark, its striking, and although sometimes bleak, its vibrant.Spit Three Times is, perhaps, unlike any graphic novel youve ever read, and for that reason alone it deserves your attention." --The Cartoonist's Club of Great Britain

Author Bio

DAVIDE REVIATI is an Italian cartoonist and illustrator in the Italian media (il Manifesto, La Stampa, L'Unit ), and a screenwriter. His graphic novel, Morti di sonno (Coconino Press, 2009), won the 2010 Napoli Comic Con, and the best book in translation for its French edition (Casterman 2011). Sputa tre volte (Spit Three Times) was published in Italy in 2016 after seven years of crafting story and illustrations.