Filippo Genzini, a Marketing Expert and Mystery Man
 Filippo Genzini |
"I'm working ahead with my writing, so at least I don't risk getting writer's block," jokes Filippo Genzini, mystery writer by passion and marketing expert by profession, talking about the material to be published that is all ready on his desk. Genzini, who has recently published his fourth book, graduated from Bocconi in 1981 in business economics with a specialization in personnel organization.
"Writing has always been a part of my life, but at first it was just a drive that quickly faded when the emotional situations that created it passed," says the writer. "The turning point happened in 1994." After he graduated, in '82 he began working in marketing and started at AcNielsen, where he worked on several projects until '94. During that time, he had two experiences in advertising, including one at the Mondadori agency which works for the Rete 4 television network. "I had also focused on the world of television during the time I was working on my thesis," he says.
After leaving AcNeilsen, he participated in founding the Italian branch of Information Resources, an information services business for consumer goods companies and one of the largest competitors of AcNielsen. "This was the moment that was the turning point in my parallel life as a writer: my professional career was undergoing a radical change, my son was born and I lost my mother. There were a combination of circumstances that scared me at an emotional level and pushed me to dedicate more time to writing." It was an interior shuffling that led to his first mystery novel, the genre that comes easiest to him when transferring his conception of reality to his readers.
After that first liberating effort, Filippo Genzini has not stopped writing and has made Police Officer Zarotti's investigations the constant throughout his books (there are 13 of them, even though at the moment only four have been published). The last one that was released was Numero perfetto per l'assassino (Robin edizioni, 2011), in which Genzini tells about the world he comes from, the world of marketing and large companies in the industry. It's a sort of "return to the scene of the crime," he says. His literary production, 13 novels in 17 years, is the product of a combination of regular work and inspiration from daily life. The Bocconian writer, both in the past as an employee and currently now that he owns his own consultancy marketing outsourcing firm, has never missed his appointment with the word processor: "I dedicate at least an hour a day. You have to learn to make time to write every day," he explains. Real life, is never void of ideas: in his books you can find the economic crisis, difficulties in relationships between couples, managers seeking status and small agricultural entrepreneurs distrusting the banks. Milan and Cremona are depicted, where Genzini's books have received particular success. In front of the first blank page, the story is often just an outline in the writer's mind. "I never know how my books are going to end and sometimes I like to the idea of surprising myself a little with an unexpected ending."
And if Officer Zarotti's office is by now a little bit like his family, Filippo Genzini still has half a mind to try other literary genres as well, and has already written a first draft of something he calls "a novel that's a little claustrophobic" set at a public health center in Milan. "It's an experiment," he says. "We'll have to wait and see how it ends this time..."