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Possess the Air: Love, Heroism, and the Battle for the Soul of Mussolini's Rome
A Globe and Mail Fall 2019 Book to Watch
Whoever you are, you are sure to be a severe critic of Fascism, and you must feel the servile shame. But even you are responsible for your inaction. Do not seek to justify yourself with the illusion that there is nothing to be done. That is not true. Every person of courage and honour is quietly working for a free Italy. Even if you do not want to join us, there are still TEN THINGS which you can do. You can, and therefore you must.
These unsayable words, printed on leaflets that rained down on Mussolini’s headquarters in the heart of Rome at the height of the dictator’s power, drive the central drama of Possess the Air. This is the story of freedom fighters who defied Italy’s despot by opposing the rising tide of populism and xenophobia. Chief among them: poet and aviator Lauro de Bosis, firstborn of an Italian aristocrat and a New Englander, who transformed himself into a modern Icarus and amazed the world as he risked his life in the skies to bring Il Duce down. Taras Grescoe’s inspiring story of resistance, risk, and sacrifice paints a portrait of heroes in the fight against authoritarianism. This is an essential biography for our time.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
368 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 15, 2019
About the author
Taras Grescoe
11 books73 followersTaras Grescoe was born in 1967. He writes essays, articles, and books. He is something of a non-fiction specialist.
His first book was Sacré Blues, a portrait of contemporary Quebec that won Canada's Edna Staebler Award for Non-Fiction, two Quebec Writers' Federation Awards, a National Magazine Award (for an excerpted chapter), and was short-listed for the Writers' Trust Award. It was published in 2000 by Macfarlane, Walter & Ross, and became a Canadian bestseller. Sacré Blues helped Taras fall in love with Quebec, and explained the origins of poutine to an eternally grateful country. The publisher let it go out of print, but used copies can be found starting at $89.23 on Amazon.
His second book, The End of Elsewhere: Travels Among the Tourists (2003), which was published by McClelland & Stewart, involved a gruelling nine-month journey by foot, rented Renault, India railway 2A sleeper, and túk-túk, from one End of the Earth (Finisterre in Galicia) to the other (Tianya Haijiao, the End of the Earth in Hainan, China). An exploration of the origins and consequences of mass tourism, The End of Elsewhere saw Taras walking from west to east along a thousand-year-old east-to-west pilgrimmage route, stuffing his belly on a cruise ship from Venice to Istanbul, and observing the antics of sex tourists in the flesh-pots of Thailand. It failed to win any prizes in Quebec, but was nominated for a national Writers' Trust Award, and was then published to great critical acclaim in England by Serpent's Tail. The New Yorker called it "A gloriously trivia-strewn history of tourism."
His third book, The Devil's Picnic: Around the World in Pursuit of Forbidden Fruit, was a real labor of love. Taras revived a post-adolescent interest in debauchery and (temporarily) turned it into a vocation, chewing coca leaves in Bolivia, scoring moonshine in Norway, and puffing on Cuban cigars in the smoke-easys in San Francisco. This one was published by Bloomsbury in New York, Macmillan in London, and HarperCollins in Toronto in 2005. The Picnic, critics seemed to agree, was a rollicking good read, with a serious subtext about the nanny state and the limits of individual liberty. It sold quite well, and was translated into German, French, Chinese, and Japanese, but didn't get nominated for anything. Apparently nobody wants to give writers prizes for having a really, really, good time (even with a serious subtext).
As for his fourth and latest book, Bottomfeeder, he really shouldn't have to tell you about it. You're soaking in it.
Taras is also a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Independent, and National Geographic Traveler. He has written features for Saveur, Gourmet, Salon, Wired, the Guardian, the Globe and Mail, Maclean's, Men's Health, the Chicago Tribune Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Times of London, and Condé Nast Traveller. He has prowled nocturnally in the footsteps of Dalî and Buñuel in Toledo, Spain for National Geographic Traveler, eaten bugs for The Independent, and substituted for William Safire in the New York Times Magazine. His travel essays have been published in several anthologies.
He has twice been invited to appear at the Edinburgh Book Festival (where he learned to love brown sauce and vegetarian haggis), done the amazing Literary Journalism program at the Banff Centre (where he got the other writers ripped on authentic absinthe from the Val de Travers), and has led seminars on travel and food writing from the depths of Westmount to the heights of Haida Gwaii.
He lives on an island called Montreal, which can be found at the confluence of the Ottawa and Saint Lawrence Rivers.
His first book was Sacré Blues, a portrait of contemporary Quebec that won Canada's Edna Staebler Award for Non-Fiction, two Quebec Writers' Federation Awards, a National Magazine Award (for an excerpted chapter), and was short-listed for the Writers' Trust Award. It was published in 2000 by Macfarlane, Walter & Ross, and became a Canadian bestseller. Sacré Blues helped Taras fall in love with Quebec, and explained the origins of poutine to an eternally grateful country. The publisher let it go out of print, but used copies can be found starting at $89.23 on Amazon.
His second book, The End of Elsewhere: Travels Among the Tourists (2003), which was published by McClelland & Stewart, involved a gruelling nine-month journey by foot, rented Renault, India railway 2A sleeper, and túk-túk, from one End of the Earth (Finisterre in Galicia) to the other (Tianya Haijiao, the End of the Earth in Hainan, China). An exploration of the origins and consequences of mass tourism, The End of Elsewhere saw Taras walking from west to east along a thousand-year-old east-to-west pilgrimmage route, stuffing his belly on a cruise ship from Venice to Istanbul, and observing the antics of sex tourists in the flesh-pots of Thailand. It failed to win any prizes in Quebec, but was nominated for a national Writers' Trust Award, and was then published to great critical acclaim in England by Serpent's Tail. The New Yorker called it "A gloriously trivia-strewn history of tourism."
His third book, The Devil's Picnic: Around the World in Pursuit of Forbidden Fruit, was a real labor of love. Taras revived a post-adolescent interest in debauchery and (temporarily) turned it into a vocation, chewing coca leaves in Bolivia, scoring moonshine in Norway, and puffing on Cuban cigars in the smoke-easys in San Francisco. This one was published by Bloomsbury in New York, Macmillan in London, and HarperCollins in Toronto in 2005. The Picnic, critics seemed to agree, was a rollicking good read, with a serious subtext about the nanny state and the limits of individual liberty. It sold quite well, and was translated into German, French, Chinese, and Japanese, but didn't get nominated for anything. Apparently nobody wants to give writers prizes for having a really, really, good time (even with a serious subtext).
As for his fourth and latest book, Bottomfeeder, he really shouldn't have to tell you about it. You're soaking in it.
Taras is also a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Independent, and National Geographic Traveler. He has written features for Saveur, Gourmet, Salon, Wired, the Guardian, the Globe and Mail, Maclean's, Men's Health, the Chicago Tribune Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Times of London, and Condé Nast Traveller. He has prowled nocturnally in the footsteps of Dalî and Buñuel in Toledo, Spain for National Geographic Traveler, eaten bugs for The Independent, and substituted for William Safire in the New York Times Magazine. His travel essays have been published in several anthologies.
He has twice been invited to appear at the Edinburgh Book Festival (where he learned to love brown sauce and vegetarian haggis), done the amazing Literary Journalism program at the Banff Centre (where he got the other writers ripped on authentic absinthe from the Val de Travers), and has led seminars on travel and food writing from the depths of Westmount to the heights of Haida Gwaii.
He lives on an island called Montreal, which can be found at the confluence of the Ottawa and Saint Lawrence Rivers.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 12, 2022
Okay, it's not like I'm an expert on historical non-fiction (have I ever read any of it before?), but this one, picked up on a whim while sitting beside the 900s on a Sabbath library excursion (friends, the last time I got to do THAT, when even was it, such luxury to be back!), I found to be both absorbing and well-done. I certainly picked it up because of its cover, and I have no regret.
Structuring the events of the book around the person of Lauro de Boiso was a genius tactic, and I salute Grescoe for this. His story provides a clear through line amidst the otherwise slightly bewildering plethora of names and events all over three continents and twentyish years.
I believe the book is trying to draw parallels between Mussolini and Trump, and while I know enough to see the broad strokes of it, I do not know enough to gauge how reasonable these parallels are, or what Grescoe's grasp of reality is like, or any of those things. It was a compelling read that seemed to be told by someone of clear-sightedness and intelligence, and I buy it until/unless I learn new information. ;)
Structuring the events of the book around the person of Lauro de Boiso was a genius tactic, and I salute Grescoe for this. His story provides a clear through line amidst the otherwise slightly bewildering plethora of names and events all over three continents and twentyish years.
I believe the book is trying to draw parallels between Mussolini and Trump, and while I know enough to see the broad strokes of it, I do not know enough to gauge how reasonable these parallels are, or what Grescoe's grasp of reality is like, or any of those things. It was a compelling read that seemed to be told by someone of clear-sightedness and intelligence, and I buy it until/unless I learn new information. ;)
February 8, 2025
This one star is only for the AUDIOBOOK, which will make your ears bleed. That the lifeless narrator lacks talent in his reading and delivery is bad enough (I thought maybe it was AI) but not even the worst offense. The book is set in Italy: how is it possible to give the task of audio narration to someone who can't pronounce even simple name places? The city of Genoa pronounced as Gen-OH-ah?? Porca miseria! This may be a decent novel (and I will finish it because I love the setting and era) BUT I wanted to give warning about the execrable audio.
September 25, 2025
Lauro de bosis disappears after bombing Rome with antidacist leaflets. Had interstate bits but lacked focus.
January 23, 2020
Taras Grescoe presents himself as a travel writer who falls for a place and then looks around for a book idea to justify prolonged dalliance. Shanghai Grand (Harper Collins, 2016) captured the teetering glamour of China’s port city on the eve of the Second World War. His new book, Possess the Air (Biblioasis, 2019) delves into Rome under Mussolini. Definitely not the Eternal City’s finest years, but ample material for a juicy, page-turning ramble among famous names that weren’t yet famous, and living legends whose rich biographies have disappeared into the mist.
The story begins at an obscure address, a cluster of sumptuous old buildings within walking distance of the Vatican and Coliseum. Funded by the likes of J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt and Frick, the American Academy offered a bed and stipend to young architects, artists and intellectuals seeking a taste of the Old World before they turned to the real business of making America culturally great.
While much of the book’s appeal rises from gorgeous descriptions of Rome’s sensual impact, both Grescoe’s observations and records written at the time, and characters make the landscape breathe. A 23-year-old Yale grad, Thornton Wilder pitched up at the Academy in the fall of 1920, determined to stay beyond the reach of his father until he’d found an identity to make filial independence permanent. Wilder becomes our entree into closed salons and smoky cafés populated by flamboyant ex-pats and old stock Italians, leading eventually to the dashing poet and aviator, Lauro de Bosis, the son of an Italian aristocrat and a New Englander whose dramatic act of heroic resistance to Fascism provides the story’s momentum and climax.
What was it like to live without freedom of speech and reliable media, inside the noisy bubble of a totalitarian state, where the din of apparent economic progress and prosperity drowned out the loss of values and institutions built and cherished over centuries? Possess the Air relies on people who were there, their love affairs, yearnings, crises and disappointments, to answer the central questions. How did they cope, deny or see reality for what it was, react or not? The ultimate act of resistance, carefully plotted and fatally executed by the poet de Bosis, is both triumph and tragedy. Possess the Air suggests the greater strength of his action was metaphorical, rather than tangible, hence a story ripe for telling in a time of eerie parallels.
Grescoe says of Rome: “The city’s persistence across centuries seems to offer a salutary rebuke to an unhealthy obsession with the present.” I would turn the tables to say that this accomplished Montreal writer’s latest achievement serves as a welcome tonic to our unavoidable obsession with times present. When a terrible malady overtook and ripped apart a great civilisation, one man made his opposition known to tens of thousands of countrymen, a personal gesture waged above the gloom, gracing a city that lived on, beyond him, to reclaim freedom. It can be done. It must be done. By the end of Possess the Air, you’re ready to believe it will be done.
Masterfully constructed, elegantly composed, this is a book to be savoured by anyone with an appetite for what Henry James called “the luxury of loving Italy.” It’s an important book, offering a way through the present by way of connection with a complicated past.
Published in Accenti Magazine https://accenti.ca/inside-the-noisy-b...
The story begins at an obscure address, a cluster of sumptuous old buildings within walking distance of the Vatican and Coliseum. Funded by the likes of J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt and Frick, the American Academy offered a bed and stipend to young architects, artists and intellectuals seeking a taste of the Old World before they turned to the real business of making America culturally great.
While much of the book’s appeal rises from gorgeous descriptions of Rome’s sensual impact, both Grescoe’s observations and records written at the time, and characters make the landscape breathe. A 23-year-old Yale grad, Thornton Wilder pitched up at the Academy in the fall of 1920, determined to stay beyond the reach of his father until he’d found an identity to make filial independence permanent. Wilder becomes our entree into closed salons and smoky cafés populated by flamboyant ex-pats and old stock Italians, leading eventually to the dashing poet and aviator, Lauro de Bosis, the son of an Italian aristocrat and a New Englander whose dramatic act of heroic resistance to Fascism provides the story’s momentum and climax.
What was it like to live without freedom of speech and reliable media, inside the noisy bubble of a totalitarian state, where the din of apparent economic progress and prosperity drowned out the loss of values and institutions built and cherished over centuries? Possess the Air relies on people who were there, their love affairs, yearnings, crises and disappointments, to answer the central questions. How did they cope, deny or see reality for what it was, react or not? The ultimate act of resistance, carefully plotted and fatally executed by the poet de Bosis, is both triumph and tragedy. Possess the Air suggests the greater strength of his action was metaphorical, rather than tangible, hence a story ripe for telling in a time of eerie parallels.
Grescoe says of Rome: “The city’s persistence across centuries seems to offer a salutary rebuke to an unhealthy obsession with the present.” I would turn the tables to say that this accomplished Montreal writer’s latest achievement serves as a welcome tonic to our unavoidable obsession with times present. When a terrible malady overtook and ripped apart a great civilisation, one man made his opposition known to tens of thousands of countrymen, a personal gesture waged above the gloom, gracing a city that lived on, beyond him, to reclaim freedom. It can be done. It must be done. By the end of Possess the Air, you’re ready to believe it will be done.
Masterfully constructed, elegantly composed, this is a book to be savoured by anyone with an appetite for what Henry James called “the luxury of loving Italy.” It’s an important book, offering a way through the present by way of connection with a complicated past.
Published in Accenti Magazine https://accenti.ca/inside-the-noisy-b...
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January 10, 2020Author tracks how the literate classes in Italy reacted to Mussolini's fascist takeover in the early 1920s. He follows the lives of eight to ten individuals and how they intertwined with the dictator and his party. The results are mixed. Many of the culturatti were hoodwinked by supposed early economic progress and by Mussolini's charm (as were much of the international media) but a small band of intellectuals were not fooled. Chief among these was Lauro de Bosis who is the star of this book. A fledgling author he started an anti-fascist newsletter that he ran off in his home and mailed indiscriminately around Rome asking everyone who received a newsletter to send more out to others. It was a chain mail system that bedevilled the government. When this system was discovered and shut down De Bosis continued his protest by learning to fly and dropping hundreds of leaflets over Rome from his plane. It's this bit of heroism that keeps De Bosis' name alive today. The book makes the point that citizens of democratic countries can never afford to take its freedoms for granted.
May 15, 2022
I had little knowledge and almost no interest in this topic before picking up this book, but Grescoe’s engaging style and narrative woven of first person accounts drew me in. At the heart of the tale is a young man named Lauro de Bosis, who managed one spectacular act in defiance of Mussolini: he dropped thousands of resistance leaflets over Rome one evening in 1931 from a small airplane, then flew away before any of the regime’s military could catch him. But there is so much more about how Mussolini changed Rome and about some of the people who lived through those times. All in such a readable style!
May 6, 2020
Deep and studied description of a moment and an essential place in modern history. The author's work is impressive. What is not understood is the fact that he tells the outcome of the main character when there is still a third of the book
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews