OTTAVIO CAPPELLANI

WHO IS LOU SCIORTINO? (CHI E’ LOU SCIORTINO?)

This extraordinary internationally successful debut novel has been bought by Neri Pozza Italy (original publisher); Editions Metailie France; Farrar, Straus & Giroux USA; Picador UK; Pendo Verlag Germany; Dom Quixote Portugal; Forum Sweden; Tammi Finland; Gyldendal Denmark; Cappelen Norway; Querido Netherlands; Yilin Press China; Bjartur Iceland; Salamandra Spain; Muza Poland; Laguna Serbia & Montenegro; Nova Fronteira Brazil; Partvonal Hungary; Ucila Slovenia; Musu Knyga Lithuania; Inostranka Russia; Rybka Czechoslovakia; Diigisi Greece; Dulnyouk Korea. Rights for a German radioplay sold to WDR.

The superb fictional debut of a Sicilian Roddy Doyle. When a policeman is murdered in the little shop owned by "Uncle Mimmo" (in truth, no-one's uncle at all), the finger is pointed at Nick, a "neo-melodic musician, whose band, Tears and saints, have cornered the market in marriages, barbeques and ex-slave conventions (but in his heart Nick is a tough, glamorous rock star).Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Lou Sciortino, grandson of the biggest and most envied boss of the Sicilian-American mafia in Los Angeles - who only wants Lou to be a really nice, decent person and concentrate on his job laundering the family money by producing the films of Leonard Trent (writer, director, actor and madman)- is about to find hinself in a lot of trouble...

When a bomb explodes in the offices of ‘Starship Movies’, Lou is sent back to safe Sicily to stay with family friends, because a really nice decent person doesn’t take part in mafia wars.


But keeping his distance from his grandfather, the family, and all-out mafia war is as big a problem for Lou; as his love of gin. And then Lou is asked to investigate a strange musician named Nick and a murder in a small shop...
A novel in which your friends are not your friends, some killers are very glamorous in black Armani, grandfathers aren’t silly old men at all, hairstyles are explosions, nice decent people can still bring on the apocalypse, and the reader asks the question – can the inimitable Lou Sciortino negotiate countless party girls, coiffeurs, crazy actors, lunatic musicians, small shopkeepers, and Sicilian wives to solve the murder? The book is utterly unique: a beautifully written, witty, authentic and gripping novel that reveals how today's mafia works.

'Finally the post-modern and metropolitan Sicily of boys that look like bodyguards, dressed in striped suits, sunglasses and short hair, and of girls that look like disco dancers, has found it's ideal chronicler.....A completely exhilarating story.' La Repubblica

'A blisteringly funny debut novel' Kirkus Review

'The Catania of this very funny mafia detective story is as rich as a meuillefeuille cake. Cappellani mixes Italian and Sicilian, he alternatesgruesome killings and imaginary screenplays of tearjerker movies....Lou Sciortino reminds you of Tony Soprano. Prozac in his pocket and the godfather of Francis Ford Coppola in his heart....' Book of the Week, Panorama

'A debut novel as sharp as the metal of a knife planted in the back.' GQ

'A fun detective story that moves between the lights of via Etnea and small roads with dark shops. While a crossbow - the weapon for the first killing - is hidden ynder the counter, the director Leonard Trent, one of the many strange characters that live in the pages of this book, talks about the new ways for recycling money. Leonard talks to you in the same passionate tone that Fassbinder had when he spoke about Douglas Sirk...brilliant dialogue... All the plot & rhythm of great cinema.' Vanity Fair

'Who is Lou Sciortino? is built as a movie and it has every possibility of becoming one. Cappellani's Catania has the brutality of Quentin Tarantino and the trash of Pedro Almodovar...and it has the hybrid way of a post-modern Catania that Cappellani describes as an expert observer.' Corriere della Sera

Material: Finished copies (222 pages)

OTTAVIO CAPPELLANI is a journalist with a daily column on the Sicilia newspaper and writes for several other Italian papers. He is also a songwriter, musician and fronts a band. CHI E LOU SCIORTINO is his first novel. He has published LA MORALE DEL CAVALLO, a philosophical dialogue with a postscript by Manlio Sgalambro. Ottavio is busy putting the finishing touches to his new novel A SICILIAN TRAGEDY.