... extraordinary ... M: Son of the century was something of a triumph when it appeared in Italy in 2018, selling in the hundreds of thousands, winning the leading literary prize, the Premio Strega, and finding itself worthy even of a tetchy polemic by an eminent historian in the pages of Corriere della sera. As Antonio Scurati ploughs on in the coming years through volumes three and four, we can only hope that Spain in 1981 rather than the Aventine Secession of 1924 will be the model come the next storming of the capitol.

The feeling of historical destiny that drives the narrative is so dramatically potent that it raises doubts in the reader’s mind. Is it possible that the portrayal of Mussolini as a masterful tactician who alone perceives the route to power has been over-determined, a known historical outcome conflated with an historical inevitability? There isn’t much room for randomness or luck in this depiction of events. Though nothing about the rise of Fascism has been softened or elided, the account sometimes seems like one that Mussolini himself would approve of. He may be evil and amoral but—in this volume at least—he never looks dumb ... This is unquestionably disturbing. Yet I would defend Mr. Scurati’s characterization on literary grounds. I have often heard readers wonder what the point of historical fiction is, and why anyone would read it rather than a good work of history proper. M: Son of the Century is not the book to turn to for an explanatory blow-by-blow of Mussolini’s rise to power, nor is it interested in presenting an objective, wide-angle view on the complex, interdependent factors that brought about his dictatorship ... What it does instead is re-create the sensations of the era: the dry-mouthed claustrophobia of looming confrontation, the bitterness of resentment and humiliation and the wild exhilaration of violent reprisal. Most of all, it makes us feel the perverse seduction of Fascism, which is connected to the universal allure of victory and control. Readers will find themselves swept up by the story, thrilled by its conflicts and strangely forgetful that its 'hero' is a murderous despot. It’s a dangerous lesson for a novel to convey, but a profoundly important one.

We know that the First World War left Europe smashed-up, and that, in its aftermath, in the broken soil of the combatant nations, a variety of strange and toxic political fruit flourished, but seldom has the growth of one of those regimes been so fully described. Panoptic and polyphonic, Scurati’s book gives us the experiences of the fearful and the feared, the rhetoric of both the revolutionaries and the reactionaries (and of those, like Mussolini, who veered between the two positions) ... Scurati’s book is very long; it is composed of a multitude of short fragments that collectively add up to an immense mosaic ... It is presented, perversely, as a novel, though it would be more accurately described as history-writing with a few liberties taken. Scurati hews very close to his sources. Occasionally he allows himself a fictional flourish ... Scurati writes with gusto. His style is that of a man unfamiliar with the adage “less is more”. His prose is as verbose and elaborate as his subjects’. He piles on ever more adjectives, more adverbs, more extravagantly protracted sentences. He says things three times over in slightly varying ways. It is as though his researches have left his mind saturated with a blend of d’Annunzio’s florid linguistic curlicues, Mussolini’s oratorical thunder and the fervour of communist rhetoric ... Milano Appel’s translation keeps up gamely: where meaning occasionally vanishes into a haze of highly-charged verbiage I suspect she is being true to the original. I don’t object to Scurati’s taking us inside the collective mind of fascism to show us what it is like. Immersing us in it without the life-belt of irony, however, is likely to leave readers gasping for air. Its language is bombastic, grandiose, exhaustingly irrational. A spritz of something tart would have helped to make it more digestible ... Mussolini saw that disgruntled militarists were numerous but uncoordinated and, cuckoo-like, he ousted their leaders and took over their command. He was an opportunist who caught the wave of violence engulfing postwar Italy and rode it. This book is a fittingly energetic account of that baleful ride.

... an absolutely stunning translation ... succeeds every bit as brilliantly ... One index of skill in any work of historical fiction like this is its ability to maintain suspense despite the fact that the reader already knows how the story turns out. Any even casual history buff knows that Mussolini will be the winner of the political and ideological melee that fills these pages with guessing games; indeed, thanks to the macabre art of photography, readers creep through this book reading about a striding, striving young man while the whole time having in their mind’s eye the infamous photo of an older Mussolini’s corpse strung upside-down like a hog in an abattoir ... The dissonance is only initially jarring, after which Scurati’s skill completely subsumes it. This novel is entirely full of living and even immortal figures, fiery young men and women embracing the future and Futurism ... belongs entirely to 'Mussolini, the herald of interventionism,' and readers are drawn into his passions, disappointments, and increasingly illicit aspirations. The result is magnificently, disturbingly mesmerizing. The second book in the series, M: Man of Destiny, can’t arrive in English soon enough.

A brilliant, sprawling, polyvocal tale of the rise of Benito Mussolini in the immediate aftermath of World War I ... Given the recent drift of so many parliamentary and democratic nations toward authoritarianism, Scurati’s book could not be more timely, and it’s a superb exercise in blending historical fact and literary imagination ... A masterwork of modern Italian literature that will leave readers eager for more.

The historical sweep takes in fascist, socialist, and liberal ideologies competing for Italy’s future, and the author captivates with portrayals of various characters’ poignant struggles, such as the wealthy and obstinate real-life socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti, who was abducted and murdered by Fascists on June 10, 1924. The magisterial prose, adeptly translated by Appel, takes a bold look into the abyss, as readers will come to know 'the Duce of fascism' and to understand 'the Mussolini cyclone'. Scurati’s ambivalent portrait of a powerful fascist is sure to spark much debate.

... the tale of how democracy can die to the sound of such thunderous applause. And, among its insights, it points to an unlikely enabler for Mussolini’s rise: the liberal establishment, the educated urban elite who assumed that they could control the rabble-rousing leader for their own ends ... the book’s most interesting feature is the liberty he takes to venture into the mind of Mussolini himself ... For readers in the United States, the lessons will feel poignant as well ... Scurati is approaching this tension as a novelist—and a fictional interpretation is of course an exaggeration of historical reality, no matter how grounded by documentation—but seeing these events from Mussolini’s perspective gives him access to an essential truth about this crucial hinge moment: that the Liberals feared the people, and this fear could easily be taken advantage of.

... stuffed with provocative ideas and squirm-inducing contemporary parallels ... Writing in the present tense, Scurati immerses us in the hurly-burly of politics on the ground ... Scurati invites our deepest contempt for the lack of conviction displayed by politicians charged with preserving democratic government ... Regrettably, it’s a long slog to get to this chilling final declaration. European critics who noted that M was not precisely a novel had a point. Virtually every narrative chapter is followed by excerpts from period documents that mostly repeat the material laid out. This bumpy mix of fact and sort-of-fiction kills the book’s momentum and makes it much longer than it needs to be. Mussolini’s henchmen and lovers enter and exit the scene without being much more than plot elements ... this relentless chronicle of authoritarianism emboldened and empowered offers a painful and valuable reminder that democracy is fragile, never to be taken for granted and always in need of committed defense. M may be more interesting to think about than it is to read, but it certainly gives us a lot to think about.