Alessandro Piperno (All press)
- Feb 1 2013
The Jewish Chronicle: "A caustic, complex and cerebral portrait of Italian bourgeois society." - Oct 5 2012
Words Without Borders: "Unstintingly sharp and arresting prose, magnificently translated from the Italian . . . an exhilarating and often uncomfortable read." - Aug 30 2012
ForeWord Magazine: "Piperno mimics the pervasive oppression of classism inherent in the ideals of the upper middle class." - Aug 30 2012
Foreword Reviews: "Themes of economic and social disparity are key to [Piperno's] voice as a writer, as is his penchant for challenging prose." - Sep 21 2007
Nextbook: "The Worst Intentions is a rich and biting portrait of Italian bourgeois society and its obsession with appearances, propriety, and saving face—a chronicle of a decadent culture uncomfortable with its irrelevance." - Sep 21 2007
Mostly Fiction: "n the witty, lively fictional memoir, The Worst Intentions from Alessandro Piperno, thirty-three-year-old narrator, Daniel spends just over 300 pages describing the turbulent fortunes of the neurotic, eccentric Jewish-Italian Sonnino clan - Sep 17 2007
The New Yorker: "Wickedly scathing début novel, a coruscating mixture of satire, family epic, Proustian meditation, and erotomaniacal farce." - Sep 10 2007
New York Magazine: "There's an enormous amount of vitality in this story of a wealthy Jewish family fallen on hard times. The writing, by turns comic and tragic, feverishly relates their self-destructive acts, from profligacy to philandering." - Jun 13 2007
Booklist: "The 33-year-old narrator [...] grandson of a Jewish Italian family, is given to the same erotic obsessions and hypersensitivity to class distinctions that preoccupy the narrators of Roth's early novels." - May 8 2007
Publishers Weekly: "This is a very bitter, very funny book."