About The Book

Enrico Brizzi is Italy’s most highly acclaimed and best-selling young writer, as well as one of its hottest literary exports and best-loved cult figures. In language that sparks with infectious energy and ironic humor, Jack Frusciante Has Left the Band has all the immediacy of a snapshot and the enduring resonance of a Catcher in the Rye for the nineties.

Alex D. is on the verge of just about everything and consumed by a restless, unanswered longing that rebels against jumping through the hoops of school. Staring down the tunnel to a mundane adulthood, he is appalled by the banality and overwhelming predictability of it all: teachers, parents, and above all his classmates’the seething masses of dutiful zombies and sistren of the Evervirgin Sorority.

A bicycle bandit with a DeNiro smile, Alex sports a homemade buzzcut, ditches school to drink and trade stories with his posse of delinquents and rogues, and chases away the blues by assailing his eardrums with the Clash. He shares a brief friendship with the privileged, degenerate Martino, who seems to have mastered the devil-may-care stance Alex covets’until he’s busted for drugs.

And then comes the sudden entrance of Aidi, who seems to instantly understand, complement, and challenge him. A hundred letters and conversations later, she is magnificent, amazing, irreplaceable . . . and leaving for a year in America at the end of the summer. Two pirates against the world, their story is funny, vividly touching, and unforgettable.

Praise

“Reading this book is like stage-diving into a mosh pit–you’ll be bumped, mangled, held aloft and carried away.” –Pagan Kennedy

“A Salinger from Bologna.” –L”Espresso

“The most beloved novel of youth culture today.” –La Stampa

“A beautiful love story and a moving slice of Gen-X life.” –El Pais

“A style which perfectly registers the language and imagination of the new generation; strictly tied to the vision and hearts of its readers.” –La Republica

“An authentic, ironic, and exciting book. An absolute cult book.” –Allgemeine Zeitung

“The excitement surrounding this book lies in its fervent pace and in its intuitive, stylistic freshness.” –Le Monde