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[The Roof Rat Review.]

Giorgio Bassani. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. Harcourt, Inc., 1977 (ll giardino dei Finzi-Contini, 1962). Wrenching and masterful. A novel that deals with its historical burden by getting the history out of the way on the first page, so that the drone note sounds through the rest of the novel doing its novelistic business.

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Texts and images copyright (C) 2022 Pauline Kerschen. Layout adapted from the Single A Tumblr theme by businessbullpen. The Greater Roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) has zygodactylic feet, leaving X-shaped tracks with ambiguous direction. The Pueblo and Hopi used the X symbol to mislead evil spirits. Border folklore in the early twentieth century held that a roadrunner would lead a lost traveler back to his path. In Mexico the roadrunner is known as paisano, countryman.