Rosso Panarea: Musolino’s noir reveals the incel universe

At the center of the story, which comes after ‘Giallo Lipari’ and which sees the return of inspector Giorgio Garbo, known as ‘u milanisi, is the death of a young model. The body is found on a beach: its end is not the result of an impulsive gesture, but it is the first act of a macabre ritual. Investigating, Garbo delves into the online forums of the incel galaxy, radicalized male communities that transform frustration into ideology and misogyny into a political project of revenge. A month after the events of ‘Giallo Lipari’, the action moves to Panarea, the island symbol of Mediterranean luxury, the most loved of VIPs. Garbo, a Milanese who moved to the Aeolian Islands, is an analogue investigator in a world dominated by social media, supported by deputy inspector Milena Russo who will play a central role. The investigation is a race against time between a fashion show and a sailing regatta, digging beneath the glamorous surface of the island, between influencers, assault journalism and power dynamics that transform female bodies into objects to be exploited.

“In Giallo Lipari’ – explains the author – the topic I took into consideration was cyber stalking, in this section instead the underground universe of the incel. This theme is very important to me. I really believe in a noir that has a strong social slant. No Italian book talks seriously about this topic. To write this story, I spent months in the Telegram forums, in the Reddit forums, I studied the way of speaking of the people who frequent them. The text contains pieces of chats, conversations, which are obviously not copied but follow that type of language that normalizes hatred, normalizes violence and rape. The idea was to tell something really vulgar that would provoke a reaction in the reader.”

One fact, however Musolinothat’s certain. Slipping into the dark and brutal world of the incel is really easy: “It doesn’t take much – he states – to be rejected by a woman, enter a forum, share photos commodifying the female body. I liked bringing all this into a reality that seems frozen in time, like that of the Aeolian Islands, representing a digital threat in the heart of a place that seems frozen in time. This is also a way of telling the microcosm of the Aeolian Islands and it’s also a story of what social media produces. It’s a way of telling a crime and everything what follows from it: the rush for the macabre, for souvenirs, for stolen photos on social media, the hunt for the monster to get a click. There is a way of telling things while respecting the victims and there is a way of telling things to gain an audience. This is destroying us”, concludes the writer. (by Carlo Roma)