Silvio Berlusconi confers with one of his cabinet ministers

In Italy, a torrid erotic novel has has an explosive impact after the author said it was a thinly veiled version of life in the Silvio Berlusconi administration. A report by Richard Owen for The Times of London gives this synopsis: “A supermarket checkout girl and a nondescript government minister meet by chance. They begin a torrid love affair and she is offered a seat in Parliament, but before she sets out on the political stage her lover dumps her and arranges for the seat to be given to another of his mistresses.”

The book — The Goldfish Doesn’t Live Here Anymore — was written by Maria Gabriella Genisi, the author of two previous books. She originally told newspapers she was inspired to write it after she was dropped by Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party (PdL) despite having been promised a “safe seat,” which was instead given to the lover of a top party official. Genisi later tried to play down “the extent to which the novel mirrored her own life,” but it was too late — says the Times, “it has caused a fever of speculation over the real identity of the minister. It has also reignited the row between Left and Right over Mr Berlusconi’s attempts to field showgirls as candidates in the recent European elections — a tactic derided by his wife, Veronica Lario, as ‘shameless trash’.”