One Step to You

by Federico Moccia

  And at the very instant he asked that question, he already, sadly, knew the answer.

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  READING GROUP GUIDE

  Dear reader,

  This novel was born long ago in 1992, when I first took on the challenge of becoming a writer. The manuscript was rejected by every major publisher in Italy, except for Il Ventaglio, a small independent publisher in Rome. The first two thousand copies disappeared very quickly from the shelves, and the publisher became bankrupt, so no reprints could be put in place and my book was nowhere to be found. At that time, I thought my career as a writer was over before it had even started.

  Still today, I owe everything to my enthusiastic readers. The incredible happened, a real story inside a story. They were the ones who started talking about One Step to You and making photocopies to pass it to their friends. They were reading it in secret, and slowly, slowly, by word of mouth, they were learning about Babi and Step’s love story thanks to a novel that didn’t exist as such anymore. Eventually, ten years later, one of those copies fell into the hands of a filmmaker who realized its potential and decided to make a movie out of the story I had written.

  That very same year a big Italian publisher acquired the rights to the novel, and it quickly became one of the biggest Italian bestsellers, topping the bestseller lists for three years in a row. My dream had come true.

  But more exciting news was waiting for me around the corner. As soon as the Italian edition came out, a Spanish translation was published, and One Step to You’s success was even bigger, when a Spanish film based on the novel was also produced and premiered in Spain.

  Babi and Step’s love story has been translated into fifteen languages and sold more than ten million copies worldwide, with the novels never out of print: A bestseller became a long seller. So much so that it has inspired the 2020 Netflix series Summertime.

  The edition you are now holding in your hands is beautiful to me because it is the very first time this love story is told in English. You, too, will be able to live all the emotions of Babi and Step’s love story that also continues in the two other novels in the trilogy, Two Chances with You and Three Times You.

  I feel so incredibly humble, thankful, and proud of how my love story has grown throughout the years. It was a book that no publishing house wanted and ended up touching millions of hearts. I now hope it will touch yours, too, and that you will fall in love with my story, One Step to You.

  Arrivederci from Rome, with love,

  Questions and Answers with Federico Moccia

  Q: This is the first time that you’ve gotten to tell your story to English-language readers. What would you like to say to them?

  A: I’d like them to know this is a true story I wrote when I was still young. This was a love story that was quite similar to one I had lived, and I tried to write about it because, when a love story ends, especially when you are young, you think it’s unbelievable that this has happened, that this love has come to an end…I was trying to find closure and get rid of my great pain. A little bit like when Kevin Costner in Message in a Bottle writes a letter full of grief for the death of his wife, puts it in a bottle, and throws it into the sea. One Step to You had all this: my passions, my love for Babi, the bike races, everything I had lived with my ex…

  I’d like each of you to find all the moments of happiness and pain in my first love story. Every time my books have been translated in a different language—and it has happened fifteen times—I am very curious. I want to see the effect my stories have, stories thought of and written in Italian and full of our atmosphere, on readers from different parts of the world. When I have seen the response in the countries I’ve traveled to to promote my books, I’ve been left in shock. It has been amazing how each love story I wrote multiplied and transformed according to the contexts, the habits, and lifestyles of the people who have read them. It has always evoked a very strong emotion for me; it has been literally a discovery for me. I have seen how far love can go and how, after all, love is a universal language.

  It’s now time for the United States to read it, a country that I love for its many facets, always diverse, always surprising. You cannot tag the US with a single label, definitions fit it badly, and that’s what I most love about it. During college, I spent some time working in New York while I was studying at university to become a film director because I felt I needed different perspectives from the Italian ones I was used to. New York City blessed me with the most wild and amazing gifts and helped me grow a lot despite the short time I spent there.

  Thinking now that, in that very same city, there will be people reading my stories and—why not?—growing fond of Babi, Step, and Gin (in book two of the trilogy), and I hope telling me what they think of it, thrills me just like thirty years ago when Tre metri sopra il cielo came out for the first time. Babi, Step, and Gin are not fictional characters but three real friends who have taught me so much during these past years and are now about to surprise me once again in the English world.

  Q: Step and Babi have been called a modern-day Romeo and Juliet. What other stories influenced you as you were writing this book?

  A: Certainly, there have been many because a writer is nothing but a person who learns by reading more than with writing courses. One gets used to writing by reading, by assimilating other writers, by loving paragraphs, sentences, passages, and scenes told in a certain way that help you find your own voice. It’s like having digested their writing and creating your own as a result. Paul Auster, Truman Capote, and Raymond Carver were influences, but also Thomas Pynchon, Donald Barthelme, and John Barth were my food, with books like Jack London’s Martin Eden, and especially Tender Is the Night, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Great Gatsby, and The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I loved every sentence, I read every passage, and I tasted all the moments, the pains, the peculiarities, the characters, his love for his wife Zelda, his mental fragility, everything he loved about her and fell in love with. At the same time, I loved a writer who was his most total opposite, Ernest Hemingway, with his hunting and fishing trips, his strong and extreme ways; all these I loved. I loved his writing and how he loved life. For example, in the beautiful book that is Islands in the Stream, I appreciated how Hemingway loved the beauty of the sea and how this somehow confirmed his love for life, bullfights, and people.

  Here these writers were fundamental to me. I love to find out where the authors I love will take me. I tie their stories to people, to facts, a normal moment in everyday life. It is a real satisfaction for me to go out now in the States, given my love for great American literature, contemporary and otherwise, which I have always devoured. So often love is intertwined with the social issues of a complex, multicultural country, full of different influences, which therefore produces diverse, poignant, and always surprising books.

  With One Step to You, I wrote the story I wanted to read. Two characters of today with two family stories only apparently different, but certainly similar in complications with parents and siblings. Two teenagers who unwittingly found themselves dealing with each other and who continued to choose each day against the opinion of practically everyone, because few have bet on their love. In there, you will find all my passion as a reader, the authors I loved and love.

  Q: Rome has the “Moccia route,” where sentences from your books are written on the walls of the city. If we are lucky enough to travel to Rome, can we see three meters above the sky written?

  A: Indeed you can. I passed by, just the other day, as I was cycling under the bridge in Corso Francia located in the northern part of Rome known as Roma Nord, which is where One Step to You, Two Chances with You, and Three Times You are set. Still today, under the bridge that takes you from Ponte Milvio to Labaro, heading north in Roma Nord, you can see the Tre metri sopra il cielo graffiti. Both in the movies
and in my novels, the bridge in Corso Francia is in important love scenes and moments of our characters, as well as in the races.

  Q: Step is a very cool character. Were you part of the cool kids growing up? Or were you studious like Babi?

  A: Step is a very interesting and difficult character. My group of friends was a very miscellaneous group because I never liked to hang out with people I didn’t like just because they were cool. I used to spend time, and I still do, with special and worthy people with whom I feel we can share some meaningful time together.

  I enjoyed studying things that amused me. I was no nerd; my graduation score in high school was high just because I was more mature than the average guy. At the exam, I debated about the ancient Greek authors I had to translate into Italian. Teachers were amused watching me criticize the school system and pointing out those authors’ different points of view. That’s how I got full marks.

  I loved school because I was conscious it was the most beautiful and peaceful time of our lives, with very few problems, unlike the years that follow. I remember many of my schoolmates trying to squeeze two years into one in order to get to college sooner. I used to tell them, “Are you crazy? What for?” Why were they in so much of a hurry if time was passing by anyway? One must enjoy life with no rush and a certain dose of carefulness, savoring the beauty of each moment.

  Q: There is a lot of violence in the book. Do you think this is a rite of passage for most young males? Do you think readers have been shocked by it?

  A: Sometimes it’s inevitable, mostly during high school, as kids try to assert themselves in any way they can, which often leads to mistakes. That’s how the issue of bullying arises, the need for one to overshadow the other in order to find one’s place and be the best you can be.

  I tried to write about how Step is full of anger and resentment toward his mother, something he found out at his own expense and a truth that he doesn’t want to admit or discuss with either his brother or his father. Step is angry toward life until he finds love.

  My intention was to explain how love has the incredible ability to cure people of their anger. Love triumphs over violence. Hopefully this message reaches my readers, which can be an important answer to the whole issue.

  Q: You convey a wonderful sense of freedom while riding motorcycles. Do you like to ride? Do you own a motorcycle that is a particular favorite?

  A: I’m really fond of motorbikes. They allow you to wriggle between traffic and escape chaos easily and quickly, by visiting the coast, for instance. Motorbikes are freedom, wind, speed, and independence. I’ve been passionate about them since I was young.

  I used to have a Honda 350, then a Honda 750, and now I navigate the city on my Honda 300. It’s my secret pleasure to get out at night, surrounded by silence, as I watch the moon high in the sky, illuminating the road. It’s wonderful to just drive slowly with no rush, with the low humming of the engine, breathing in the scent of the flowers, especially during this season just before summer begins. Every time, the fragrance of the night amazes me as if I forgot it…I love rediscovering it again and again.

  Q: One of the best action scenes takes place at the Greenhouse. Is the Greenhouse a place that exists in real life? Did you ever attend any illegal races while you were growing up?

  A: The Greenhouse really existed. When I was young, I used to watch illegal street races. The place is named after a dip along the road where riders can pick up speed very easily. They could reach two hundred kilometers per hour, and sadly there were lots of accidents. Both sides of the road were covered with flowers in memory of those who had lost their lives. That’s why we called it the Greenhouse; it was packed with flowers. I never took part in a race; kids under fourteen years old weren’t allowed to. Only the older ones, like sixteen and up—a few years make a huge difference at that age. Despite all this, I’ve been a huge fan of those races, and every time I could, I escaped my home to go and watch them.

  Q: One of Step’s most romantic gestures is to give Babi a night in her dream house. Is the dream house based on a real place?

  A: Yes, it is indeed a real place. Along Feniglia beach, where I used to go when I was young, there’s still a house, an amazing villa standing alone on a cliff facing the sea. It’s incredibly beautiful and hard to get to. As a matter of fact, it’s enclosed by a fence that runs along the street and has a very high gate. It’s unique because it’s exposed to the summer sunset, which turns orange in the evenings.

  I remember watching it while passing by on the long beach—over six kilometers—in the direction of Ansedonia and thinking how much I would have liked to visit there. That’s why I decided to let Step do it, by breaking in through the window. I thought it was the perfect spot for Babi and him to make love for the first time.

  Many years after the success of Tre metri sopra il cielo, I was sailing nearby with some friends, and I got closer to the house to take a better look. The landlords peered out, recognized me, and invited me in. We docked the boat and entered the villa. The owners asked me if I had ever been inside, if by any chance the housekeeper who manages it in the winter had allowed me in, because many of the things I imagined and depicted in the book were real. They were amazed by the resemblance and invited me to take a tour. It was really remarkable, and I felt the same amazement Step felt when he took Babi there for the first time.

  Q: There are a lot of fun cultural references from the 1980s, like going to the discotheque. Did you spend a lot of time in clubs as a young person? Are you a good dancer? Did you have a favorite dance song?

  A: I used to love dancing and still do, I usually have great fun; it’s an incredible moment when you close your eyes and stop thinking about the people staring at you. You just let go and dance, and the more you let go, the better you dance. I cannot say I’m a good dancer, but I do love dancing and I don’t care about the people around me.

  All my favorite songs are from the late 1970s, like the songs from the film Saturday Night Fever, the Bee Gees or Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, “Disco Inferno,” mostly 1980s music. I believe it’s the best, and it’s no coincidence that it’s still popular today. You can find some of my favorite tracks in the book…such as Spandau Ballet’s “Through the Barricades.” It was the perfect song for a very difficult moment in the story.

  Q: Babi’s parents are quite strict, while Step’s parents seem more lenient. And you dedicate this book to your own parents. In what ways do your parents resemble the parents in the story? Or are they completely different?

  A: My parents are just like Step’s parents, but they never split up. I dedicated the book to them because it seemed like the natural thing for me to do. In the trilogy, there’s a big part of my family, the things I observed, what I felt and lived through as a kid. I changed it slightly in the story so that it fit, but it’s there. My mom and dad loved each other very much and continued to do so. So I tried to imagine through Step’s eyes what it would be like to witness the end of such a great love, very much like the one my mother and father had, and then the pain of watching your parents getting a divorce.

  Q: A teacher plays a major role in this story. Do you think you would make a good teacher?

  A: A teacher is a very important person, the person we meet at school who enables us as we grow up and someone with the power to change our life. What I said may seem trivial, but it is not. I remember one of my high school professors, his name was Giuseppe Gioia, he taught religion, Latin, and Greek. Thanks to him, I learned to outline, to make a script, and to organize my time in order not to be frightened when facing big projects and to be able to deal with difficulties by structuring them. So in addition to teaching me his subjects, he showed me how to deal with problems.

  I like to teach a lot. I often do internships with young people who want to become actors. We talk about acting, directing, the history of cinema, and what I have done in my career, in order to show the differences between the big and small screens and also what it means to be a television writer.
I try to give them many ideas. In addition to the theoretical part, practice is the best way to teach something, experimenting by implementing what has been studied. Teaching also means investigating the person, what his characteristics are, his difficulties, and seeing what he can actually create not only as an actor but also in regard to his approach toward life.

  Q: The story is very romantic. Do you feel the Italian culture, particularly for men, may be more open to discussing their feelings? Or was writing a romantic story something that made you work at expressing your emotions? Do you have your own great love story?

  A: Novels talk about lives, my protagonists’ lives, their families’ lives, the life of a young girl and a boy falling in love for the first time and almost touching the sky. One could say I told a story that happens to everybody. Your first love story is a big deal; it’s the best you can have because it’s the first time you feel something so powerful. You are amazed and realize for the first time what loving another person means, a person that suddenly becomes more important than you, that comes before anybody else, whose happiness is more important than your own.

  You’ll try everything to make that person happy. I remember when I was in school and had the best score on my finals, but I was feeling miserable because Babi, the girl I was dating at the time, didn’t do so well. She had a passing grade, and despite being the one who believed she always knew everything, she was the one who got marked a 36 when I got a 60. I was wrecked, and I wanted to tell the teachers, “No, please, give her my sixty, and I’ll take her grade.” She couldn’t accept the fact she’d done so badly while I couldn’t care less about my score. Love works like this; the one you love comes first.