What is a genius? It is a flash, an intuition, a principle of madness. Paolo C.’s stroke of genius comes in the darkest moment of his life. He is an actor in theater, but when his parents disappear prematurely, followed immediately after by his teacher, the pain and bewilderment reduces him to a thousand fragments. In those moments of melancholy, the only relief comes from his passion for football. And a few days after a match by his beloved Roma against Milan, with tickets already sold out for some time, here is the idea that no one else would have ever come up with: asking for a free seat in the name of a famous person and showing up at the stadium wearing their clothes. And so, on Sunday, taking advantage of a certain resemblance to Nicolas Cage and muttering a few jokes in English, Paolo C. enters the San Siro Stadium. Against all odds, not only does he get away with it, but no one notices the deception, including the news programs that give great prominence to the presence of the Hollywood star. But what initially was only a way to enter the stadium for free, soon takes on the dimension of an intimate need. Because acting in real life, unbeknownst to everyone, becomes for him a way to exorcize those griefs and, at the same time, to sublimate the love for his profession. After all, what does an actor do, if not pretend to be someone else and make as many people believe as possible?

Starting from a series of interpretations that Calabresi has really made, in a crescendo of surreal situations that continually mix fiction and reality, this novel tells the portentous hidden abilities that we can all bring out when we believe we have nothing more to lose.