num_pages: 250
description: Meet Vittorio and Milo, two young grifters living by their wits in modern Turin, getting by on petty scams and swindles. The two young men have kept an idea in a back drawer for years, the Big C - the Big Con. They're sure it will make them rich, but so far they haven't been able to get it off the ground. Enter Milo's uncle Grissino, a con-man with years of experience. He immediately grasps the potential of the Big C and joins the enterprise. Along with Cristina, Milo's girlfriend and the object of Vittorio's hopeless passion, the four set out to prove that "the great Western economy has a protective net around it, but the holes are very big and it can be penetrated if you use a little imagination."Currently in production as a film, the novel is an ironic picture of life among the lowlifes - adrift, opportunist, and alienated.
language: English
title: The Ballad of the Low Lifes
titlecomplete: The Ballad of the Low Lifes
genres: Italian Literature
ratings_count: 36
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: John Florio Prize
category: Aubrey Botsford
publisher: Toby Pr