The Miracle of Castel di Sangro: A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy

Paperback - 06 June, 2000 - Broadway
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By: Joe Mcginniss
ISBN: 0767905997

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About this book

We already knew Joe McGinniss could chill our blood (Fatal Vision) and arouse both our pity and distaste for the Kennedys (The Last Brother), but who knew he could be so funny? (Well, maybe readers who remember The Selling of the President back in 1968.) Even those who have no interest in soccer--the majority of Americans, he ruefully admits--will relish the author's vivid account of a team from Castel di Sangro, a tiny town in Italy's poorest region, that against all expectations made it to the national competition. Whether he's chronicling his ordeal at possibly the least-inviting hotel in Italy (the heat doesn't come on until October, no matter the temperature; he is assigned to a room up four flights of stairs though there are no other guests), or sketching a colorful cast of characters that includes the team's sinister owner and an utterly unflappable translator, McGinniss prompts roars of laughter as he reveals an Italy tourists never see. He also saddens readers with a shocking final scene in which he confronts the nation's casual corruption, which taints men he's come to respect and even love. Although not a conventional memoir, this stirring book reveals as much about the author's passionate character as about the nation and the players who win his heart, then break it. --Wendy Smith

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Reviews by readers

Apparently, some of you didn't get the book

I just finished it and thought it was fantastic. This is as much a fish out of water story as it is one about Italian soccer. Apparently a lot of reviewers don't understand that. It's as much about the author's experience as anything else. I think a lot of readers don't understand that by pointing out his obvious arrogance at suggesting tactics to the manager of the team and so forth, he's actually making fun of himself. Yes, he certainly doesn't agree with Jaconi, but he even mentions early in the book that his thinking that he could suggest tactics to the manager is 'the first sign of his oncoming madness'. But some of the reviewers here don't seem to get that.
Additionally, this is Joe's outsiders view of the world of Italian soccer. That he's shocked by the corrupt ending of the season is just the same reaction the average naive American would have. He's not doing an investigative report that requires extensive research.

If you only have time/money for one book on calcio--spend it on this

Joe Mcginniss has writen what is, quite possibly, THE masterpiece in English on the most beautiful game-calcio (no such thing as "soccer", by the way ;-) ) played in what are arguably the best leagues in the world--those in Italia. Joe (and after you read this book, you will certainly feel that he is indeed worthy of being held on "a first name basis") follows a team which has just undergone a miracle: promotion to Serie B (the semi big time) from Serie C...and from a town of only 5000+, to boot (they still hold the record for the smallest town to ever make it to Serie B). The book follows the team through the rain and cold of the early season, to the sauna that is the later season. The book falters a bit in only two areas: in Joe's treatment of il Mister (the coach)--he, a calcio novice, presumes to tell il Mister how to manage a calcio team; and toward the end, when Joe "blows a fuse" (although, admittedly Joe's pontifications on match fixing seem to be pulled out of today's sports headlines...although, as a Juve fan, I predict that these more recent "scandals" are largely manufactured and "si sta in A"--we stay in A :-) ), but one finds oneself sad at the end: not because of any scandal, but because more importantly, like Joe, our season in calcio is over. Truly a marvelous book. Get to writing another, Joe. :-)

"guilty pleasure"

All 3 stars are for the author's writing style. He has confirmed a suspicion of mine that when journalists want to really WRITE they do it about sports, because it's like writing fiction while providing a steady income. McGinniss' metaphors for the mundane transcend much that is bad about his book. (Which is my favorite description of inert players on a field: "hatracks," or "blow-up dolls"? I don't know. They're both great.)

Otherwise, I'm pretty much on board with the group of reviewers who are critical of the author's personality. I am a woman of middle years and do not ordinarily read sports books. (In fact, I don't even read them extra-ordinarily; I think the last one I read was Ball Four, as a kid, in hardback.) So, I'm not particularly familiar with the "sportwriter" personality referred to by some reviewers. I was attributing a lot of the author's density and obnoxiousness to his sex (sorry, guys) and the sneaking suspicion, based on where he lived at the time of the book's publication, that he was a college professor.

For me, the life drained from the book when the author learned enough Italian to think he understood Italian; his translator and voice of sanity, Barbara, disappeared, and the book became a story of how Joe McGinniss would do things better, how Joe McGinniss was the first one on the field and the last one off, how Joe McGinniss was kind to grieving widows and full of moral outrage against bullies, fools, and cowards. I slogged through to the end hoping that this would be a coming of age tale for McGinniss: that at the end, he would have realized the hubris of planting himself uninvited in a foreign culture and, with 4 months' worth of language lessons, assuming he knew best. The irony of a person with his left-leaning political opinions attempting to lord it over foreigners should not be lost on any of us, as it sadly seems to have been lost on him.

I know American women who have lived here in Italy (where I am residing temporarily) for decades who acknowledge that, regardless of how many Italian children they give birth to or how long they stay here, they will remain "stranieri." I don't think Italy is unique in its insularity; I think, to the contrary, that what is unique is the inclusiveness of America. Furthermore, I would bet that most tribal societies still live by the rules of the jungle displayed by the Castel di Sangro management (govern by fear, hoard resources, do favors for friends, punish enemies promptly); certainly most of Italy (still) does, notwithstanding American notions of a "rule of law." I am a little depressed that someone with the linguistic flair McGinniss shows can be so thick-headed as not to understand these two points. (Again, they are: 1) You are a foreigner even though you sit at their dinner table; and, 2) to paraphrase one of the players, It wasn't an accident that the birthplace of Machiavelli was Italy.)

Finally--and I am torn about this complaint--there is a streak of cruelty running through the book that bothers me. My ambivalence here is that comedy is cruel, and that parts of the book, particularly in the beginning, as the author meets up with the little criminals running the Castel di Sangro roadshow, are priceless. I have driven through Abruzzo and often wondered about those mysterious 20 foot walls one sees in the mountains now and then, protecting apparently nothing. Now I know. However, his criticism of the team coach and the players is rarely amusing; it seems splenetic and at times infantile (in particular, that little acknowledgement at the end to the coach as a "great next door neighbor"). Okay, Joe, we get it; some of these guys--probably the ones who did not befriend you--are not World Cup-ready. Leave them alone and go pick on someone more your own size. You were doing great while you were taking on the thugs; maybe crime reporting would more suit your sense of decency.

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