Gabriel Corsi: “My father teaches at Princeton. Now I suffer from Alzheimer’s disease to remain a son.”

The summary tells a story in which many can recognize themselves: “A one-way dialogue, in the voice of a man visiting his father, whom he almost no longer recognizes, and who suffers from a disease that erases his memory…” . It is estimated that there are more than one million elderly people in Italy suffering from some form of dementia. Maybe that’s why An autobiographical novel by Gabriel CorsiAlthough it’s not out yet (it will be in bookstores today, and will be published by Cairo), it’s already in the rankings on Amazon, first in medical fiction.

Of the Medusa trio, Corsi is the one with the moustache, and he is with the trio on Radio Deejay in the morning, and in the evening, he hosts Novi Don’t forget the lyricsBut “the real Gabriele is the one who appears in the book,” he explains. The one who holds his 83-year-old father’s hand and looks into space for hours, the one who, as a boy, was a conscientious objector, loading “the lunatics from the insane asylum” onto a minibus to take them to the seaside. The one who today only learned to cry, we will soon see to what extent. What a beautiful day, let’s hope it doesn’t rain – a story of madness, amnesia, rediscovery of memory that begins with a poem that has been spreading on social media for months: “Let me be a son again. Only once. Just once…just once, one more time, make me feel safe….”

When did he write it?
“When I realized my father wasn’t feeling well. Then, when I wrote the book, I coped with it my whole life. I wrote pages with tears in my eyes, and others that I will never read again because they hurt me.”

Why did you combine the “Project Antoinette” experience for psychiatric patients with your father’s illness?
“Because they are both stories of fragility and loneliness. The saddest scene I’ve ever seen is the Joker sitting in a chair for hours waiting for his brother. At some point, he said to me: He’s not coming anymore, is he? He wakes up, undresses and goes to bed at 11am. When my father was sick, to motivate him, I reminded him of stories from the past. “Then I realized he wasn’t listening, but in the meantime I was holding his hand, something he would never let me do.”

When did you realize he was sick?
“He started failing two years ago, but in the first cognitive tests, he fooled the doctors: he did the math perfectly; But maybe he didn’t remember what day it was then. Then, one day, he ended up on the A1 without knowing why. The deterioration was rapid, and he shrank like a bird. But my mother says: ‘At least he’s there.’

What does it mean to have a father in these circumstances?
“We have three people staying with him, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one at night. How much can you carry? Unfortunately, there is no social network that adequately supports families. I can do a little. If it’s a nice day, I’ll take him for a walk. “Or I’ll take my mom out.”

What was his father like?
“He’s the electronics engineer with a fedora on his head and novel volumes under his arm. He taught at Princeton University. He was among the group that invented the CD and created the infrared device for non-invasive diagnosis of breast cancer. His mother gave birth to him and he invented this machine, which is used everywhere. Then the industrialist he was working for discovered that his infrared rays could make weapons and his father quit. To avoid making weapons. This is my father.”

What is the diagnosis?
“Frontal temporal atrophy, complete mutations. Everything and nothing. For days, he didn’t even look at you. Sometimes I say: Dad was fine today. But would I say it to myself? There is no possibility of verification. Sometimes, I remind him of when he bought a small boat with a friend: they packed it up, put it into the sea and after ten meters it sank. Someone asks: Did you put the hat on? They are: Why, was there a cover? This makes him laugh a lot and makes my heart shine, but some days I say, “Remember the boat?” “And he doesn’t react.”

What relationship did you have?
“We got hurt a few times. I wanted more from him: we never talked about my dreams; I was hoping for an extra ‘well done’. But in recent years we have gone to stores and said: Have you seen who my son is? Before, I missed the pat on the back that I try not to let my kids miss. But I know he did what he could: he always came to my shows with my mom. Even at the disco, where they looked like plainclothes policemen.”

This is also a book about what you haven’t told each other?
“There’s everything I told him now that it’s too late. Basically, I love him. Now, I know things need to be said right away and I have freed myself from many unnecessary burdens. When I went to see my daughter, who sings jazz, in New York, on the plane, I was crying my eyes out. The flight attendant came to tell me: I should ask her to cry more slowly, because she is annoying. But I’m no longer ashamed to cry.”

What is Project Antoinette?
“A structure intended to restore the independence of patients released from psychiatric hospitals closed under Basaglia’s Law, hospitals where one could be admitted for an epileptic seizure and perhaps never leave again. Nurses who had previously confined patients found themselves eating lunch side by side with them: it was historic. I was 24, and I added excitement to that. We spent three days convincing one of the jokers to take a shower, while before that they had forcefully thrown him under the water: the idea was to restore their dignity. “After that, some went to live on their own.”

Why the title “What a Beautiful Day, Let’s Hope It Doesn’t Rain”?
“It was the little song that the patient would repeat obsessively. There, the days were the same and I realized that life was about waiting for the sun to rise and moving forward. “Waking up in the morning just hoping the weather will be nice and not rain.”