“Wasting Time Comes Easy to Me”, Rocco Papaleo’s fictionalized autobiography in bookstores

“Mine is the story of someone who wanted to leave and left, but now wants to come back. A story of small flashes of happiness kept at bay”. Word of Rocco Papaleo (Lauria, 1958) actor, director, screenwriter and musician. Now he has written a new book, “an autobiography set to music of a southerner on leave” as he says.

Its title is “Perdere tempo mi viene facile”: it will be in bookstores from October 1st, published by Mondadori, with which Papaleo had already published “Una piccola impresa meridionale” (2013). It contains reflections, anecdotes, entire stories, but also poems and songs: Papaleo, in this original “self-account”, allows free access to his creativity.

The volume is a universe of words, written and recited, sometimes even sung, born and cultivated thanks to one of his greatest talents: being a layabout. What emerges in a joyfully disordered way from the volume is his nature as a profound person, amused and funny, imaginative, “son of a simple family from Basilicata in the Sixties”. (continued)

An ex-boyfriend who has embarked on his own ‘coast to coast’

There are countless themes covered, starting from episodes experienced first-hand: the author tells us about his first time at the seaside, an epiphanic event that teaches him to float in life. He tells us about his first guitar, which reveals his great passion for love and for the feminine side of the world.

And above all he tells us about Basilicata, Lauria and her people, her family and her character. He also gives us his memory of various meetings, including – who knows if true or dreamed – the one with Paolo Conte in a small restaurant in Asti. Many, many poems (a secret: “to tell someone I like you I always use a poem”) and several surprising songs in singer-songwriter style.

In short, it is the text of a former boy who has undertaken his very personal ‘coast to coast’ from Lauria towards the affirmation of his natural and composite talent. Truly a great result for someone who “grew up in a small town but had big dreams”.