I hadn't understood - Tapa blanda

""I Hadn''t Understood" defies classification, as does its brilliant and versatile author."--"Critica Letteraria"

""I Hadn't Understood" defies classification, as does its brilliant and versatile author."--"Critica Letteraria"

"Diego De Silva is an honest writer. He tells us right away that we will find ourselves embroiled in a novel that is non-linear, dispersive, full of digressions. He tells us in the opening pages that he loves writing this way: 'I'm interested in the kind of casual chatter that sends you off in a new direction.' Cleverly, then, he stirs the reader's curiosity and makes him an accomplice, almost asking an emotional commitment, almost as if he is confessing a secret that only the reader can hear."--"WUZ"

Malinconico is a Neapolitan lawyer without a single case. He goes through the motions every day, leaving for the office punctually, shuffling papers when he gets to the studio he shares with a group of un-gainfully employed professionals like him. His personal life is a shambles: his wife has left him, his two teenage children are rife with adolescent angst and busy screwing their lives up royally. And his professional life, as noted, is nonexistent.

But one day a miracle occurs. Indeed, two! The first is that he is assigned a case. And not any old case! He has been named the defense attorney for a member of the Neapolitan underground, Mimmo the Burzone. The second miracle bears the name Alessandra Persiana-the most beautiful woman to ever grace the Neapolitan courthouses -who, it appears, has fallen in love with Malinconico.

However, the real miracle for readers in this rollicking novel is the hilarious and eccentric voice of Vincenzio Malinconico. The novel orbits around the bizarre and irresistible mind of Malinconico, a mind that pauses to contemplate every aspect of the life he sees before him, the life he has lived, his memories and his future; a voice that seduces, entertains, and moves the reader from the first page to the last.