Venezuela and Italy, villages and prisons, forests and whore houses are the backdrops to these short stories which reflect the people and the places that have informed this wonderful writer''s work. Antonio Mezzano in Umbria, the blind man who gathers village gossip in his one good hand; La Rusa who runs her Rainbow brothel in the Andes; Eladio ''the mad man'' who searches with his mute son for the eagle they stubbornly believe will restore them to health; Otto, the political prisoner called Proff who shares his cell with a killer; tiny Silvio the poet on Buona Vita Street; Nanzia, the family cook whose heart was chopped like parsley on marble when love came her way. In many senses, these are the dispossessed, the southpaws - prostitutes, peasants, shopkeepers, mothers among them.
