New Delhi, Nov. 13 -- As the Sonia-Rajiv Gandhi love story played out on loop on social media in the run-up to the release of this book, my attention was caught by her allusion to Rajiv's "gentleness" being as appealing to her as his good looks. Would she get beyond the shmaltzy girl-meets-boy tale, I wondered, and write about why she was moved by gentleness in a man. Well, she doesn't, exactly, but the answer is writ large in her portrait of her father, Stefano Maino, an ex-sergeant major in Mussolini's army resembling a Haryanvi patriarch.

Padre padrone (father owner) Stefano, "loved, respected, feared", disapproves of make-up, makes his daughters read out private letters, storms out when unhappy with meals, and in "a fit of irritation...