Love-Shaped Story - Tapa dura

‘A delightfully quirky modern parable about a lonely insomniac, Homer B Alienson, who turns out to be the imaginary childhood friend of the young Kurt Cobain. Troubled by the question of love and what exactly it might be, Homer embarks on a surreal adventure across America. Seamlessly translated from the Italian by Jon Hunt, this is a smart, funny and philosophical look at love and what it means to be understood.’ Observer

‘You read this book in a trance, and finishing it is like waking on a cold hillside after a lavish dream...This novel, Pincio’s first to appear in English, should be read for the weirdness of its vision. “Love-Shaped Story” is as dark and desperate as Cobain's lyrics – something of which Pincio must be proud.’ Daily Telegraph

‘For those who love the American writer Chuck Palahniuk, or for those who revere Russia's Victor Pelevin, Tommaso Pincio will come as a revelation.’ Financial Times

‘Beautifully evoking the despair of rain-drenched, redneck Aberdeen, Washington, “Love-Shaped Story” captures the boredom that propelled Cobain’s creativity and self-destructive despair.’ Q Magazine

‘Powerful...a brilliant dissection of the psychological diseases that plague the modern mind...Needless to say, this mixture of fact and fiction, especially involving such a well-loved deceased figure, is troubling, but this sort of risk is exactly what the modern novelist needs to be attempting if the form is to remain strong.’ Matt Thorne, Zembla

A darkly enchanting tale set in Seattle in the 1990s – the fictional life of Kurt Cobain’s childhood imaginary friend...

As a little boy, Kurt would insist that his mother set a place at the table for ‘Boddah’, his imaginary friend.

Two decades later and the rock star Kurt Cobain is found dead from a gunshot wound to the head. Beside his body is a note – addressed to Boddah.

Tommaso Pincio gives life to Boddah and conjures up a darkly beautiful coming-of-age novel, set against the rainy backdrop of Grunge America in the early 1990s...