It's the thick of the mid-1990s boom, and David M. Gross is racking
up billable hours for a Manhattan corporate law firm and thinking
that there must be more to life. Out of the blue, a friend calls
with a tantalizing and risky proposal: How would he feel about
moving to Bologna to help turn around a legendary, down-on-its-luck
Italian motorcycle company, known for its dominance on the track
and its inability to turn a profit? After a brief soul-search and
popping his first (unintentional) wheelie during his maiden ride on
the company's monstrous superbike, he signs on. And so Gross
heads to Bologna, fabled home of marbled meats, radical leftist
politics, and bespoke shoes, diving into his new life as the
"corporate image consultant" to gearheads and learning to navigate
the giddy mores of Bolognese society. He meets the CEO, who can
relax only on planes between meetings; the manic, bellicose bike
designer, convinced that only his genius can save the company; and
the director of the museum, obsessed by the factory's role in World
War II. Gross sparks the business's "spectacularization" with sexy
ad campaigns starring factory workers who, when not on strike,
strut to the espresso machine clad in Versace. Above
all, he falls in love with motorcycles, seduced by speed, and
realizes that becoming a better rider means tapping into dormant
parts of his self that, as it turns out, were just waiting to be
unleashed. And when he picks up a handsome, young--and
closeted--skinhead, things really get interesting . . . In
sensuous, hilarious, and wildly entertaining prose, Gross pens a
wry yet ecstatic love letter to an uproarious city and its
style-obsessed denizens, and to the motorcycle that gave him the
freedom to live life at its very fastest.
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