From the internationally best-selling author of I’m Not Scared comes a dizzying and compulsively readable novel set in a moribund town in industrial Italy, where a father and son contend with a hostile world and their own inner demons. The economically depressed village of Varrano, where Cristiano Zena lives with his hard-drinking, out-of-work father, Rino, is a world away from the picturesque towns of travel-brochure Italy. When Rino and his rough-edged cronies Danilo and Quattro Formaggi come up with a plan to reverse all their fortunes, Cristiano wonders if maybe their lives are poised for deliverance after all. But the plan goes horribly awry. On a night of apocalyptic weather, each character will act in a way that will have irreversible consequences for themselves and others, and Cristiano will find his life changed forever, and not in the way he had hoped. Gritty and relentless, As God Commands moves at breakneck speed, blending brutal violence, dark humor, and surprising tenderness. With clear-eyed affection, Niccolò Ammaniti introduces a cast of unforgettable characters trapped at the crossroads of hope and despair.
As God Commands
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Plans for an ATM heist go terribly wrong for a bumbling gang of Italian ruffians in Ammaniti's latest. Rino Zena, an unemployed single father with neo-Nazi tendencies, can barely keep his teenage son, Cristiano, out of social services. Zeno's friend Danilo Aprea hopes to buy a lingerie shop in order to woo back his wife after the death of their daughter. Their plan, to boost an ATM, hinges on the car-thieving skills of Corrado Rumitz, nicknamed Quattro Formaggi, a not-quite-right misfit obsessed with a porn star named Ramona. After watching Dog Day Afternoon, Rino takes the movie as a sign from God not to go forward with the plan, but word fails to get to Danilo or to Quattro Formaggi, who, on his way to meet up, is distracted by a teenager he thinks is Ramona. When a massive rain storm hits, the series of tragic coincidences quickly turns deadly. Ammaniti, a wonder at creating graphic black comedy, keeps the plot rolling while pushing his characters to their absolute limits, even if the last act is a bit messy. If the Coen brothers ever wanted to go Italian, this'd be prime adaptation material. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“Acclaimed novelist Niccolo Ammaniti has been widely praised for his bone-chilling stories about adolescent boys on the verge of manhood. . . . In his newest work, As God Commands, Ammaniti once again visits familiar territory with his customary skill and bravado. . . . A highly charged narrative . . . Stark and simultaneously intense . . . The core of this novel is the deep rifts that often separate so many fathers and sons, the muted aggressiveness and competitiveness, the feeling of dread that permeates; the feeling that at any moment, things could spin wildly out of control. . . . One can’t help but be enthralled by [Ammaniti’s] keen insights into the degradations that mar so many familial relationships.”—Elaine Margolin, Denver Post
“Niccolo Ammaniti is one of the bright stars in modern Italian fiction. . . . As God Commands is another exercise in nail-biting suspense by a master at raising anxiety. . . . It’s compulsive reading, with the helpless reader gobbling up hundred-page chunks at a time, the stuff of soap operas told with gusto by an Italian Dickens, in a plot that’s never going where you think it’s going, plunging along eagerly from climax to climax, littered with poetic moments and human touches. Ammaniti offers up a fascinating gallery of flawed, unpredictable human beings pondering how their impulsive mistakes, unexpected opportunities, misunderstandings, and defiant braveries reveal the inscrutable will of God.”—Nick DiMartino, Shelf Awareness
“Punk-rock desperadoes and a daft father-son tragicomedy team run riot through the mess and splendor of today’s Italy . . . [in the] latest from Ammaniti. . . . Propulsive from the first page, [As God Commands] is stunningly, disturbingly entertaining adrenaline fiction. . . . A speed-of-light montage of family-and-friend dysfunction. . . . Ammaniti relentlessly creates a poetics of perversity, an anthem of anger for working-class Italy: bollixed and laid-off by Internet modernity, appalled and titillated by the omnipresence of Britney Spears, fearful of the crash of Italy’s currency, the corruption of politicians and the onslaught of immigrants. Not at all pretty, but darkly, ferociously beautiful—a triumph for Europe’s hottest novelist.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[As God Commands] shows the gritty side of [Italy] not seen by tourists. . . . The issues raised here range widely, from alienation, violence, drug use, hunger, and joblessness to the role of religion in today’s world. . . . An excellent book discussion choice. . . . A powerful novel, cinematically written, with touches of unsentimental emotion and comedy . . . The masterly Ammaniti creates powerful characters not easy to forget.”—Library Journal
“Ammaniti, a wonder at creating graphic black comedy, keeps the plot rolling while pushing his characters to their absolute limits. . . . If the Coen brothers ever wanted to go Italian, this’d be prime adaptation material.”—Publishers Weekly
“It is impossible not to be gripped.”—Financial Times
“Ammaniti is a modern-day Dickens: he takes a ruthless snapshot of degradation, arousing horror, shock and tears.”—La Repubblica (Italy)
“Niccolò Ammaniti is one of Italy’s brightest literary stars. His fiction combines tense horror with the blackest comedy . . . [offering] an artful interstitching of plots and cinematic, horror-dazed images.”—The Observer
“[As God Commands] is a rollickingly dark horror-comic, a grueling piece of fun.”—The Independent (UK)
“An extraordinary book. The characters are dissected with a sly sense of humor, compelling you to follow them wherever they go. Ammaniti sketches a cruel picture of adolescence and laments the Italian landscape where beauty and nature have lost out to business parks and megastores.”—NRC Handelsblad (Holland)
“Niccolo Ammaniti strikes a masterful balance between farce and tragedy.”—Die Welt (Germany)
“A black thriller with the momentum of an action-packed Hollywood movie.”
—Times Literary Supplement (UK)
“Niccolò Ammaniti is the best novelist of his generation.”—Il Giornale (Italy)
“Ammaniti is a born story-teller.”—L'unità (Italy)
“Both classic and modern, As God Commands has the authenticity of a great novel.”—El Cultural (Spain)
“A tragicomic story by a writer at the top of his form.”—Le Figaro (France)
“Energy and danger spray off [the page] like water from a choppy sea. . . . Very hard to put down.”—Daily Mail (UK)
“Niccolo Ammaniti is one of the bright stars in modern Italian fiction. . . . As God Commands is another exercise in nail-biting suspense by a master at raising anxiety. . . . It’s compulsive reading, with the helpless reader gobbling up hundred-page chunks at a time, the stuff of soap operas told with gusto by an Italian Dickens, in a plot that’s never going where you think it’s going, plunging along eagerly from climax to climax, littered with poetic moments and human touches. Ammaniti offers up a fascinating gallery of flawed, unpredictable human beings pondering how their impulsive mistakes, unexpected opportunities, misunderstandings, and defiant braveries reveal the inscrutable will of God.”—Nick DiMartino, Shelf Awareness
“Punk-rock desperadoes and a daft father-son tragicomedy team run riot through the mess and splendor of today’s Italy . . . [in the] latest from Ammaniti. . . . Propulsive from the first page, [As God Commands] is stunningly, disturbingly entertaining adrenaline fiction. . . . A speed-of-light montage of family-and-friend dysfunction. . . . Ammaniti relentlessly creates a poetics of perversity, an anthem of anger for working-class Italy: bollixed and laid-off by Internet modernity, appalled and titillated by the omnipresence of Britney Spears, fearful of the crash of Italy’s currency, the corruption of politicians and the onslaught of immigrants. Not at all pretty, but darkly, ferociously beautiful—a triumph for Europe’s hottest novelist.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[As God Commands] shows the gritty side of [Italy] not seen by tourists. . . . The issues raised here range widely, from alienation, violence, drug use, hunger, and joblessness to the role of religion in today’s world. . . . An excellent book discussion choice. . . . A powerful novel, cinematically written, with touches of unsentimental emotion and comedy . . . The masterly Ammaniti creates powerful characters not easy to forget.”—Library Journal
“Ammaniti, a wonder at creating graphic black comedy, keeps the plot rolling while pushing his characters to their absolute limits. . . . If the Coen brothers ever wanted to go Italian, this’d be prime adaptation material.”—Publishers Weekly
“It is impossible not to be gripped.”—Financial Times
“Ammaniti is a modern-day Dickens: he takes a ruthless snapshot of degradation, arousing horror, shock and tears.”—La Repubblica (Italy)
“Niccolò Ammaniti is one of Italy’s brightest literary stars. His fiction combines tense horror with the blackest comedy . . . [offering] an artful interstitching of plots and cinematic, horror-dazed images.”—The Observer
“[As God Commands] is a rollickingly dark horror-comic, a grueling piece of fun.”—The Independent (UK)
“An extraordinary book. The characters are dissected with a sly sense of humor, compelling you to follow them wherever they go. Ammaniti sketches a cruel picture of adolescence and laments the Italian landscape where beauty and nature have lost out to business parks and megastores.”—NRC Handelsblad (Holland)
“Niccolo Ammaniti strikes a masterful balance between farce and tragedy.”—Die Welt (Germany)
“A black thriller with the momentum of an action-packed Hollywood movie.”
—Times Literary Supplement (UK)
“Niccolò Ammaniti is the best novelist of his generation.”—Il Giornale (Italy)
“Ammaniti is a born story-teller.”—L'unità (Italy)
“Both classic and modern, As God Commands has the authenticity of a great novel.”—El Cultural (Spain)
“A tragicomic story by a writer at the top of his form.”—Le Figaro (France)
“Energy and danger spray off [the page] like water from a choppy sea. . . . Very hard to put down.”—Daily Mail (UK)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Niccolo Ammaniti has written an extremely compelling and unforgettable novel, a love story between a father and son. The boy is thirteen year old Cristiano, sad, stalwart; the father, Rino, a down market Nazi drunkard, but a hero to his son and not undeservedly so. The setting is modern day Italy, but not a place you will ever find in the guide books. The plot rockets along with never a wasted or inappropriate scene or thought. There is much horror in this novel, but also a mordant humor. The title is quite appropriate---the novel explores various interpretations of God's will as perceived by various characters. But the philosophy is shown, not explained, as it would be in the hands of a lesser author.
This is a marvelous novel, don't miss it; it will stay in your memory for a long time as a book you will be happy to have known.
This is a marvelous novel, don't miss it; it will stay in your memory for a long time as a book you will be happy to have known.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Many of the characters in this gripping slice-of-life novel get their experience of the world outside their North Italian industrial wasteland from watching movies. One thinks that only the Robert De Niro of TAXI DRIVER or perhaps Al Pacino could adequately play the lives of the downtrodden poor who populate the book -- ordinary working men, if they could ever find any work. Another character, mentally deranged after a near-electrocution, is fixated on an American porn video he picked up from a garbage can -- that and a room-sized Nativity Creche also pieced together from found trash. The reviewer for Publishers Weekly quoted on the back cover says "If the Coen brothers ever wanted to go Italian, this'd be prime adaptation material." He's right; for a long time the tone of comic ineptitude laced with violence plays very like the downscale characters in the Coens' FARGO. But by the halfway point, the novel has moved far beyond comedy into something horrible yet deeper. I don't know if the 2008 Italian movie by Gabriele Salvatores made of this book follows it through its many transformations. It hasn't yet been shown in the US, but surely will be if this novel catches on as it should.
The central character, Christiano Zena, is a 13-year-old boy who lives with his father Rino in a broken-down house on the edge of a nondescript town. Rino, an aging neo-Nazi skinhead, womanizer, and drunk, nevertheless loves his son and is terribly afraid that they will be separated by Social Services. In the early part of the book, which spans a week in all, Rino is roped in by two of his friends -- a once-upright man trying desperately to get his wife back, and the sweetly pathetic trash collector -- into participating in a scheme to steal a bank ATM. The novel, which is divided into three sections called BEFORE, THE NIGHT, and AFTER, looks like developing into a tale of an inept heist that goes wrong. But by the time we come to the central section, several other characters have come forward to share center stage, the robbery itself has faded into a minor detail, and the events that occur are cataclysmic by comparison.
Neither the characters nor the setting -- the very antithesis of tourist Italy -- are very attractive, but Ammaniti's skill draws you in despite that. Christiano is no angel, but you can sympathize with him. And soon you get caught up in the other lives as well, reading less for the story than for the people. But with the central section, as the events of the night play out nightmare-fashion in a torrential downpour, all that changes; it is now the action that keeps you reading, horribly explicit though some of it is. And with the last part Ammaniti changes again, probing the moral implications of the story, as he asks what the place is of God in all this -- a question answered mostly with cynicism, but sometimes with awe. The book ends much more darkly than it had begun, but with far larger dimensions, and a sense of rightness and even of uplift. Though not for the squeamish, this is a magnificent achievement that deserves a wide readership.
The central character, Christiano Zena, is a 13-year-old boy who lives with his father Rino in a broken-down house on the edge of a nondescript town. Rino, an aging neo-Nazi skinhead, womanizer, and drunk, nevertheless loves his son and is terribly afraid that they will be separated by Social Services. In the early part of the book, which spans a week in all, Rino is roped in by two of his friends -- a once-upright man trying desperately to get his wife back, and the sweetly pathetic trash collector -- into participating in a scheme to steal a bank ATM. The novel, which is divided into three sections called BEFORE, THE NIGHT, and AFTER, looks like developing into a tale of an inept heist that goes wrong. But by the time we come to the central section, several other characters have come forward to share center stage, the robbery itself has faded into a minor detail, and the events that occur are cataclysmic by comparison.
Neither the characters nor the setting -- the very antithesis of tourist Italy -- are very attractive, but Ammaniti's skill draws you in despite that. Christiano is no angel, but you can sympathize with him. And soon you get caught up in the other lives as well, reading less for the story than for the people. But with the central section, as the events of the night play out nightmare-fashion in a torrential downpour, all that changes; it is now the action that keeps you reading, horribly explicit though some of it is. And with the last part Ammaniti changes again, probing the moral implications of the story, as he asks what the place is of God in all this -- a question answered mostly with cynicism, but sometimes with awe. The book ends much more darkly than it had begun, but with far larger dimensions, and a sense of rightness and even of uplift. Though not for the squeamish, this is a magnificent achievement that deserves a wide readership.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
About 50 pages into "As God Commands" I wasn't sure that I wanted to go further. I was expecting a crime novel but the grimness and utter pessimism that are embedded in the book's beginning pages made for tough reading. Somewhere, a bit further along though, as the characters took on real flesh and the reader is literally inside their heads, the story becomes engrossing in the extreme. Author Niccolo Ammaniti is immensely skilled at demonstrating credibly how unpredictable people can be under great stress, and conversely, how unswerving the same people can be in their loyalties and passions. By page 100, I couldn't put the book down as there is literally an action vortex that grabs hold--a bit like watching the proverbial slow motion car crash. Unlike the preordained result of the car crash, the reader really doesn't know how "God..." is going to end.
This is a story about underclass people living in an affluent society (contemporary Italy) but seemingly permanently excluded from ever joining "the good life". Frustration leads to paranoia, anger and mental illness. Anger and mental illness lead to violence. Somehow though, humanity and love are not completely snuffed out. The main characters here are a father and his 13-year old son; a well-meaning but emotionally frustrated social worker; a handicapped social exile losing touch with reality; and a middle-class dropout whose daughter's death and subsequent wife's departure have permanently unbalanced him. The secondary cast of characters are primarily the "Greek chorus" that witnesses the tragedies that are to unfold. Ironically, there are no witnesses to the story's limited triumphs.
The writing in this novel is extraordinary (as is the translation work) and will make you want to read other books by Ammaniti. Do take note, however, that "As God Commands" is also published under the title "The Crossroads." Impressed as I was with "God...", i ordered the alternately titled version also.
Highly recommended.
This is a story about underclass people living in an affluent society (contemporary Italy) but seemingly permanently excluded from ever joining "the good life". Frustration leads to paranoia, anger and mental illness. Anger and mental illness lead to violence. Somehow though, humanity and love are not completely snuffed out. The main characters here are a father and his 13-year old son; a well-meaning but emotionally frustrated social worker; a handicapped social exile losing touch with reality; and a middle-class dropout whose daughter's death and subsequent wife's departure have permanently unbalanced him. The secondary cast of characters are primarily the "Greek chorus" that witnesses the tragedies that are to unfold. Ironically, there are no witnesses to the story's limited triumphs.
The writing in this novel is extraordinary (as is the translation work) and will make you want to read other books by Ammaniti. Do take note, however, that "As God Commands" is also published under the title "The Crossroads." Impressed as I was with "God...", i ordered the alternately titled version also.
Highly recommended.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
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A brilliant, funny, and emotional story
I ripped through this beautifully written book. I won't summarize the setting and plot here but you can find this elsewhere. Read more
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