{"product_id":"party-with-cassowary-a-novel","title":"Party with Cassowary: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003eA college party in the hills of northern Italy descends into a harrowing and outlandish rite of passage. Like the beguiling bird at its center, Party with Cassowary dares its characters—and its readers—to confront something dangerous, inscrutable, demanding to be touched.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Surprising and spellbinding.” —Vincenzo Latronico, author of Perfection\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt’s the beginning of summer. Isa M., a second-year lit major, is throwing a party at her family’s lavish villa on the outskirts of Turin. The music is loud, the prosecco is flowing, and the garden is packed with friends—and maybe a few gate-crashers. The only guest who hasn’t arrived yet is Ezio, the boy she’s falling in love with.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen an anonymous gift turns up on the kitchen counter: a bottle of Barbera with a card that reads, Unless someone touches the cassowary before 1am, Ezio dies.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt first it seems like a prank. Except Ezio still isn’t answering his phone. And no one’s sure who brought the bottle. Or what, exactly, a cassowary is. (Or why the neighbors are keeping one in the surrounding woods!)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs the hours tick by—and the undergrads wade further into a heady mix of alcohol, drugs, jealousy, lust, and dread—the gravity of the dare sinks in. Shifting among a chorus of students (including a Tarot reader, a would-be philosopher in a parka, a perennial tag-along who’s been exiled from the group chat, and a shy artist from Puglia caught up in the night’s seductive chaos), Party with Cassowary captures the precarity of early adulthood with piercing wit and a generous heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinner of Italy’s Premio Mondello, with rights sold in thirteen countries, Leonardo San Pietro’s debut is an existential thriller and a magnetic, mannerist portrait of a generation crippled by the weight of desire and decision.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53777363665203,"sku":"9798217208500","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0843\/1108\/1267\/files\/9798217208500.jpg?v=1785547530","url":"https:\/\/slantoflightbooks.com\/products\/party-with-cassowary-a-novel","provider":"Slant of Light Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}