Remarkably prescient. There was a disquieting commonality between its intended place and moment and the one we find ourselves in now... No Gibson, no Sterling, no cyberpunk or spec-fic scribbler of the '80s or '90s ever captured the poisoned zeitgeist of social media better than this... It was a book written for a different world. And the most disturbing thing ... Read moreabout it is how appropriate it is for ours.
Jason Sheehan - NPR.org An admirable translation... This is a book written in 1975 and featuring no technology more advanced than high-end analog audio recordings, yet it grasps the implications of social media in ways cyberpunk never did... It may be the novel that foreshadows our moment more accurately than any number of speculative fictions...A welcome and timely addition to the weird fiction of distinctly earthly terrors.
Peter Berard - LA Review of Books Giorgio De Maria's The Twenty Days of Turin is more than a book; it is a literary event... This novel offers a perfect prediction of the internet era... Chilling and wonderfully weird. On one hand, the narrative is a smart allegory for the feelings of tension and terror that abounded in Italy in the 1970s and a predictive text that nails online (non)communication in ways that most cyberpunk novels failed to do. On the other hand, it is also a fun, fast-paced horror story in which the city is the main character, the past and present bleed into each other, and paranoia takes center stage. De Maria's style is enjoyable and timeless.
Gabino Iglesias - Vol. 1 Brooklyn The paranoia of The Twenty Days of Turin calls to mind a work of similar portent: Thomas Pynchon's sclerotic, satirical 1966 novel, The Crying of Lot 49... De Maria's novel is a good complement to Pynchon, and perhaps an even more relevant work for our era... De Maria's arresting vision of social media that commands attention.
Nick Ripatrazone - Commonweal The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio De Maria is a chilling novel that conjures up the creepy claustrophobia of The Tenant and the mind-bending epic horror of House of Leaves-except spread across an entire city. Odd libraries, uncanny monuments, horrific deaths, and terrifying puppet shows...even days later, I'm still flinching at shadows, unable to forget the riveting details of a newly unearthed uncanny classic.
Jeff Vandermeer, New York Times best-selling author of the Southern Reach Trilogy In The Twenty Days of Turin, De Maria predicted contemporary society's loneliness, cruelty, and voyeurism decades early and with unnerving accuracy-a haunting, eerily prescient novel.
Carmen Machado, author of Her Body & Other Parties Almost forgotten to the ash heap of collective literary amnesia, Giorgio De Maria's masterpiece oozes with unsettling creepiness and despair as strange gods play out their violent fantasies in an Italy gone quietly insane. This one will slip its way into your darkest dreams.
Christian Kiefer, author of The Animals The Twenty Days of Turin is an unholy masterwork of the macabre, more than just a beautifully terrifying ghost story. A writer of uncanny, occult powers, De Maria has crafted an intensely relevant allegory that will take its rightful place alongside the darkest of Saramago and Poe.
William Giraldi, author of Hold the Dark and The Hero's Body Show Less