The Perfect Fascist: A Story of Love Power and Morality in Mussolinis Italy

About this book

Winner of the Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize Winner of the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies A New Statesman Book of the Year As Fellini did in film The Perfect Fascist takes us into the dark and complicated heart of Italian fascismIt is an extraordinary story that illuminates the ways in which the all-consuming nature of fascism distorted Italian society and destroyed the lives of individuals. I could not put it down. Margaret MacMillan author of Paris 1919 With lyrical precision The Perfect Fascist reveals how ideology corrupts the truth how untrammeled ambition destroys the soul and how the vanity of white male supremacy distorts emotion making even love a matter of state. Sonia Purnell author of A Woman of No Importance Through the story of one exemplary fascista war hero turned commander of Mussolinis Black Shirtsthe award-winning author of How Fascism Ruled Women reveals how the personal became political in the fascist quest for manhood and power. When Attilio Teruzzi Mussolinis handsome political enforcer married a rising young American opera star his good fortune seemed settled. The wedding was a carefully stage-managed affair capped with a blessing by Mussolini himself. Yet only three years later after being promoted to commander of the Black Shirts Teruzzi renounced his wife. In fascist Italy a Catholic country with no divorce law he could only dissolve the marriage by filing for an annulment through the medieval procedures of the Church Court. The proceedings took an ominous turn when Mussolini joined Hitler: Lilliana Teruzzi was Jewish and fascist Italy would soon introduce its first race laws. The Perfect Fascist pivots from the intimate story of a tempestuous seduction and inconvenient marriagebrilliantly reconstructed through family letters and court recordsto a riveting account of Mussolinis rise and fall. It invites us to see in the vain loyal lecherous and impetuous Attilio Teruzzi a decorated military officer an exemplar of fascisms New Man. Why did he abruptly discard the woman he had so eagerly courted? And why when the time came to find another partner did he choose another Jewish woman as his would-be wife? In Victoria de Grazias engrossing account we see him vacillating between the will of his Duce and the dictates of his heart. De Grazias landmark history captures the seductive appeal of fascism and shows us how in his moral pieties and intimate betrayals his violence and opportunism Teruzzi is a forefather of the illiberal politicians of today.