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Summary
Summary
From "one of the most significant figures of the last generation of fantasy", comes Francesco Dimitri's debut novel in English, an enthralling and seductive fantasy following four old friends and the secrets they keep.
Four old school friends have a pact: to meet up every year in the small town in Puglia they grew up in. Art, the charismatic leader of the group and creator of the pact, insists that the agreement must remain unshakable and enduring. But this year, he never shows up.
A visit to his house increases the friends' worry; Art is farming marijuana. In Southern Italy doing that kind of thing can be very dangerous. They can't go to the Carabinieri so must make enquiries of their own. This is how they come across the rumours about Art; bizarre and unbelievable rumours that he miraculously cured the local mafia boss's daughter of terminal leukaemia. And among the chaos of his house, they find a document written by Art, The Book of Hidden Things, that promises to reveal dark secrets and wonders beyond anything previously known.
Francesco Dimitri's first novel written in English, following his career as one of the most significant fantasy writers in Italy, will entrance fans of Elena Ferrante, Neil Gaiman and Donna Tartt. Set in the beguiling and seductive landscape of Southern Italy, this story is about friendship and landscape, love and betrayal; above all it is about the nature of mystery itself.
Author Notes
Francesco Dimitri is a prize-winning writer of fiction and nonfiction, a comic book writer and a screenwriter. He published eight books in Italian before switching to English. His first Italian novel was made into a film, and his last was defined by as the sort of book from which a genre 'starts again'. His first English novel, The Book of Hidden Things , a critical and commercial success, has been optioned for cinema and TV. After his second, Never The Wind , the Fortean Times called him 'one of the most wondrous writers of our time'.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Renowned Italian author Dimitri's beautiful first novel written in English, about a group of friends who have a pact to meet annually in their small Italian hometown, is an evocative meditation on friendship, adulthood, and the liminal spaces that lie just outside human perception. Tony, a surgeon; Mauro, a lawyer; and Fabio, a fashion photographer, show up to their meeting place in Casalfranco, but Art, who formed the pact 17 years before, never arrives. A search of his home uncovers disturbing items, including a very weird book by Art entitled The Book of Hidden Things: A Field Guide, and the friends discover that Art has supposedly healed a young girl who had cancer and is now being held by the local mafia. Each of the friends wants to escape the perceived bonds of his life, and Art's book offers a pathway to a place of unbelievable bliss and little responsibility, the realm of the Hidden Things. But when the companions learn the price of entry, they struggle to confront their own demons and decide whether the promised joys are worth the cost. Dimitri's beautifully written tale, steeped in nostalgia, folklore, and religion, will enthrall and terrify readers. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
Francesco Dimitris The Book of Hidden Things (Titan, £8.99) rapidly draws the reader into the story of four childhood friends, now in their 30s. Every year for almost two decades they have met up in their hometown, the small Italian village of Casalfranco. When Arturo, at whose insistence this pact was formed, fails to show up, the three concerned friends investigate and discover that hes been leading a secret life: not only has he been growing marijuana on a large scale, but he has supposedly cured a young girl of leukaemia. They also learn that hes written a manuscript entitled The Book of Hidden Things, which suggests that he has access to a world hidden from our own. But is his disappearance connected to this manuscript and an event in his childhood, when he vanished for a week and returned very much changed, or is there a more mundane explanation? Dimitris first novel in English, written with breezy fluency, is an affecting fable of friendship, magic and nostalgia. To commemorate the centenary of Arthur C Clarkes birth, editors Ian Whates and Tom Hunter invited former Clarke award winners and nominees to contribute stories and articles to 2001: An Odyssey In Words (NewCon, £12.99). The remit was that each story must be told in precisely 2,001 words, a brevity which compelled the authors to concentrate on ideas rather than characterisation, in true Clarkian tradition. The result is a strong anthology of 27 stories and three non-fiction pieces that not only references Clarkes own best-known novels 2001, Childhoods End and Rendezvous with Rama, among others but spans the gamut of SF tropes: first and last contact, time and interstellar travel, warfare and alien intervention Standouts include Adrian Tchaikovskys The Collectors, a wonderful piece of sense-of-wonder SF about humankinds first extrasolar exploration and what is found in an alien star system; The Fugue by Stephanie Holman, a poignant take on the aliens are among us theme; and Chris Becketts moving Memories of a Table, in which visitors to the Museum of Chronotronic Archaeology view brief fragments of past events. Hannu Rajaniemi is known for dense, intellectually rigorous post-singularity space operas that explore cutting-edge quantum physics, but with Summerland (Gollancz, £14.99) hes switched sub-genres while retaining his trademark conceptual high jinks and impressive world-building. Rajaniemi never spoonfeeds the reader: fans must work to piece together information slipped into the narrative. Here were in an alternate 1938, and Great Britain and the Soviet Union are locked in a cold war. What is different about this world is that both sides have access to the afterlife a realm known as Summerland where the privileged dead of our world live on and can exert influence on earth-bound events. When British secret agent Rachel White discovers that the Soviets have a mole, the now-dead Peter Bloom, her paymasters dont believe her. What follows are her labyrinthine attempts to unmask the mole in an impressive plot reminiscent of John le Carré. The third book in Ada Palmers sprawling Terra Ignota quartet, The Will to Battle (Head of Zeus, £8.99), continues the chronicle of the far-future worldwide utopia made up of seven social entities known as Hives. A three centuries-long period of peace and stability is coming to an end and society is crumbling, ravaged by corruption and political intrigue. It was always a peace bought at a cost, however: political activists and those deemed to be troublemakers were singled out for assassination. With the breakdown of society, the hives are caught up in bitter conflict, narrated by the wily criminal-cum-historian and former slave Mycoft Canner. The Will to Battle is not an easy read; couched in lush, often dense prose, its a complex intellectual disquisition on Renaissance and early Enlightenment thought, fate and free will, and a utopian societys descent into barbarism, slowed by philosophical digressions. Its necessary to have read the first two books to appreciate the byzantine complexity of the narrative; the quartet concludes next year. Craig DiLouies first speculative fiction novel, One of Us (Orbit, £8.99), is set in a version of 1984 ravaged by a sexually transmitted disease which resulted in the Plague generation mutant children born with terrible deformities who are incarcerated in inhumane institutions and often forced into slavery. But when these children begin to develop startling mental powers, several of their number, led by an autistic boy known as Brain, plan a rebellion. The tension is heightened when the US government becomes involved, and decides that the Plague generation can be used to its own ends. This is a tense thriller with a social conscience that doesnt shy away from the violently graphic consequences of its premise: DiLouie gets the reader on the side of the children with some sympathetic characterisation in an effective, and often moving, portrayal of injustice and prejudice. Eric Browns latest novel is Buying Time (Solaris). - Eric Brown.
Kirkus Review
Three men investigate the increasingly strange circumstances surrounding their old friend's disappearance from a small Italian town.Mauro, Tony, Fabio, and Art have been friends since their school days in a southern Italian village. When Art, their ringleader, suggests that they return each year on the same date to meet up, they agree, and for 17 years they keep their promise. But when Art is a no-show, memories quickly surface of a bizarre incident from their teen years when he wandered into an olive grove and vanished for seven days. Though Art returned, he was somehow altered, and the town was torn apart by rumors. Dimitria well-known fantasy author in Italy who is making his English-language debut herealternates the story from the perspectives of lawyer and family man Mauro; Tony, a surgeon whose homosexuality makes him an outsider in the strict Catholic village; and caddish fashion photographer Fabio. The reader gets a bird's eye view of the secrets the men keep from each other, both about their complicated presents and their different understandings of Art's first disappearance years ago. Is the Mafia involved? The local priest? The mentally ill woman Art was seeing? What of the rumor that Art healed a terminally ill girl before his latest vanishing? And how is his absence tied in to an odd manuscript he was writing called The Book of Hidden Things? In lesser hands, this blend of detective story, organized crime thriller, and supernatural investigation would feel like a grab bag of plot devices, but Dimitri has created a thrilling spectacle that also manages to point poignantly at the way the landscapes we grow up in shape us in ways even beyond our understanding.A deeply felt look at the idea of home, clothed as a popcornworthy page-turner. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Four childhood friends make a pact to meet in their home village every year on the same date. Fabio, a photographer, lawyer Marco, and Tony, a doctor, arrive as usual. When Art, the originator of the pact, doesn't show, the friends worry. When they search his empty house and find marijuana, a jumble of books, and rotting food, they worry even further. They report his disappearance to the Carabinieri, who refuse to investigate because Art has ties to Sacra Corona Unita, the local mafia. The friends decide to investigate on their own, all the while wondering if Art's recent disappearance is tied to a lost week when he was a teenager. Art's trail leads to a book, The Book of Hidden Things: A Field Guide, written by Art about that missing week. In the book, Art claims that supernatural creatures, the hidden things, were responsible for his disappearance. Making his debut writing in English, Italian author Dimitri crafts a rich, emotional tale that is less about hidden supernatural things and more about the things we hide from our friends and from ourselves. Perfect for book discussion groups to devour and debate.--Pearson, Lynnanne Copyright 2010 Booklist
