Before the Revolution

The study of a youth on the edge of adulthood and his aunt ten years older Fabrizio is passionate idealistic influenced by Cesare a teacher and Marxist engaged to the lovely but bourgeois Clelia and stung by the drowning of his mercurial friend Agostino a possible suicide Gina is herself a bundle of nervous energy alternately sweet seductive poetic distracted and unhinged They begin a love affair after Agostinos funeral then Gina confuses Fabrizio by sleeping with a stranger Their visits to Cesare and then to Puck one of Ginas older friends a landowner losing his land dramatize contrasting images of Italys future Their own futures are bleak