Rachel Kushner's "The Flamethrowers"

ONE of our favorite debuts in recent years is Rachel Kushner's Telex From Cuba. I was aware of this novel only because of a tip from New York literary agent Chris Calhoun, and once I read the galleys I was a bit abashed to see what a substantial talent was here in my city, until then invisible to me.

In any case, Rachel is invisible no more. Here sophomore novel, The Flamethrowers, which came out this week, is drawing rave reviews in the US and UK, and enthusiastic coverage, including an NPR interview I have not yet heard. The new novel is about speed, sex, motorcycles, Italy, '70s New York and the art world (a few of our favorite things.)

So far, it seems to me even better than the Cuba book. (She explored some of the themes in her book in a recent review of Richard Hell's new memoir in the New York Times Book Review.)

The New Yorker's James Wood calls it "scintillatingly alive, and also alive to artifice." Dwight Garner just wrote one of his characteristically electric reviews of the novel.

HERE is my interview with Rachel from a few years ago. I recently met with the Echo Park resident at a groovy nearby cafe (braving the treacherously steep Baxter to get there), and have another story on the author and her work coming soon. Until then, pick up The Flamethrowers.

Italian Rock Returns to LA

MUSIC from Italy is about more than just opera, "Volare'," and the songs of singing gondoliers. It's the goal of Hitweek LA to show Angelenos how wide the range is.

Last year I wrote about the festival here, and spoke to the organizer and a few of the bands for an LA Times story.

"We have very successful artists, from rock to heavy metal to reggae to world music," Francesco del Maro told me. "Negrita has sold out stadiums. Franco Battiato has collaborated with Antony and the Johnsons; he's very far from what you would think of as Italian music."

Schedule here for the shows at the Ford Amphitheater and the El Rey, from Weds (tonight) through Sunday as well as Djsets at The Standard West Hollywood (tonight and Sunday) and the film, The Basement, at the Italian Cultural Institute.

The bands this year include crooner Elisa (who has recorded a song with Antony), solo piano player Giovanni Allevi, ska punk band Apres la Classe, and eclectic no-guitars quintet My Awesome Mixtape.

Berlusconi and Italy's Dark Heart

IN the "couldn't happen to a nicer guy" department comes the recent attack on Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in Milan. The attack broke two teeth and fractured the media mogul's nose.

Italy and its culture are very close to my heart, but this nation does not have a very good track record when it comes to governing itself. And for all the soaring wonders of Italian art, literature and opera, the pop music utterly sucks.

British journalist Tobias Jones captured these contradictions, as well as the insularity and xenophobia that lays behind the charm, in a book which became a success d' scandale. HERE is my review of the sharply written "The Dark Heart of Italy."

As with Barzini's "The Italians," which is very much about Mussolini -- those chapters are laugh-out-loud funny, by the way -- this book is about culture and society (especially of the north and Emilia-Romagna in specific) but with Berlusconi's power and corruption sitting at its center.

Amanda Knox and Italian Noir

THE strange case of Amanda Knox -- a cute American exchange student accused of killing her British roomate -- just took a yet stranger turn as she was convicted of the murder as part of a bizarre sex game. (She is sentenced to 26 years in prison; the family will appeal.)

The fact that this took place in Perugia, the capital of the lovely and green Italian region of Umbria, known as the land of the saints -- is only element that makes me think of the consummate Italian noir writer, the late Englishman Michael Dibdin. In fact, Dibdin even taught at the University of Perugia, where Knox studied -- he set his first novel, "Ratking," there -- and settled in her hometown of Seattle before he died in 2007.

Dibdin captured a tone of weirdness and irony so well, and perhaps because he was a foreigner, could see through Italian charm -- and unravel Italian bureaucracy and political intrigue -- like a great cultural critic.

HERE is my LAT story on the author and his work. Part of what's fascinating about Dibdin's career is the way it demonstrates -- as Pico Iyer has so eloquently observed -- the strength and flexibility of the Chandleresque detective novel (born of course in LA) in wide-ranging international settings.

For those new to Didbin's work, I'd recommend that debut, or the more poltical "Medusa."

This Knox case is likely to get stranger still, I'll bet.

Italy vs. Rock 'n' Roll

Over the last decade or so, france has launched air, phoenix and a whole host of chanteuses including the heavenly keren ann. sweden has given up komeda, the concretes and peter, bjorn and john. ever germany has the scorpions. (for better or worse.)

but italy -- for centuries the most aesthetically minded nation in all of christendom -- has never sent a decent rock band into international orbit.

i try to get into the reasons for this, as well as what some consider a renaissance, in this piece in today's LATimes. it's pegged to a weeklong festival, with most of the action this weekend, called (H)itweek LA.

my favorite of all the bands is calibro35, a group that reworks the soundtracks from old italian exploitation films from the 60s and 70. classically italian, but with irony and funk.

Photo credit: Calibro35