The author has lived for thirty years in a village in the Italian Alps. He is a documentary filmmaker, and he has published several guides on New York and American literature, as well as a diary on mountain life entitled The Wild Boy (2017). With The Eight Mountains continues this almost documentary line, based on the story of two friends, Pietro and Bruno. The first spends the summer in a village at the Monte Rosa, where lives Bruno, a shepherd of the same age, who never left the hills and valleys where he was born. From the age of eleven they share their experiences away from civilization, explore abandoned paths and crown all the nearby peaks. The years go by and Pietro will work in Nepal making documentaries about Tibetan culture, but he will travel to accompany his friend Bruno whenever he needs him. The family relationships of the two protagonists will also form a considerable part of the plot, although the most valuable part of the story, written with clarity and poetic sensibility, will be the relationships of both with the nature that surrounds them.
A novel widely awarded for its literary quality, it also offers a positive vision, loaded with human values.