Wind Shift

In bestselling Italian author De Carlo's English language debut, four high-powered old friends-sensitive and conflicted editor Luisa; her uptight architect husband Enrico; Arturo, a hearty and practical designer; and Margherita, a mercurial talk-show host-embark from Milan on a weekend trip to rural Umbria. With their comically preening real estate agent Alessio, they are looking for a retreat from their frenetic urban lives (as well as an investment opportunity). But when their car breaks down, their cell phones get no signal, and a storm hits, they find themselves seeking shelter with a singularly uninviting group of people: a commune of squatters in the very houses they sought to buy, the settlement known as Windshift. Led by the charismatic Lauro, the settlers have rejected contemporary society and live a pre-modern, off-the-grid existence. As hours stretch into days, the five urbanites respond to their hosts in radically different ways, and suppressed rage and hidden desires explode in a series of confrontations. It's a schematic set-up, but De Carlo's finely tuned characterizations bring his heinously egocentric characters into vivid focus. De Carlo creates real drama in taking imperfect but self-aware people out of their element. Cell phones take a bashing, too.