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And author Umberto Eco's illustrated novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is Yambo, a sixtyish rare-book dealer who lives in Milan, has suffered a loss of memory — he can remember the plot of every book he has ever read, every line of poetry, but he no longer knows his own name, doesn't recognize his wife or his daughters, and remembers nothing about his parents or his childhood. In an effort to retrieve his past, he withdraws to the family home somewhere in the hills between Milan and Turin. There, in the sprawling attic, he searches through boxes of old newspapers, comics, records, photo albums, and adolescent diaries. And so Yambo relives the story of his Mussolini, Catholic boyhood under the shadow of Fascism. Through the artifacts of popular culture—illustrated newspapers, adventure stories, propaganda posters, and beloved songs—Yambo gradually pieces together a portrait of his youth, his first love, and the wartime Italy that shaped him.