Diego de Silva gleefully serves up a book-length comic monologue in I Hadn't Understood. The self-deluded confession of Vincenzo Malinconico is the whole show, and what a show it is. Trying to understand what's really happening in his life, the 42-year-old Neapolitan lawyer comes up with a variety of theories that he tests one by one, so that every perception goes through a legalistic sifting of the facts--but one that's constantly bubbling with wit.
Vincenzo's wife has left him for an architect. His dream woman is eagerly pursuing him. He's been assigned to defend a mafioso suspected of butchering and disposing of murder victims in the back yard. Meanwhile, his 16-year-old son is so committed to studying teenage gangs and violence that he keeps getting beaten up. His daughter joins Vincenzo for meetings at Burger King. His longing for his wife, fears about his reckless son and fumbling conversations with his daughter combine to make Vincenzo a heartwarming, endearing bungler, countering the tightening web of personal and professional problems to build up suspense subtly.
Vincenzo's freewheeling narration is savagely witty, frequently wise; he's easily worked up, often irrational and constantly putting his foot in his mouth. As he gropes his way through life's detours, trying to be an honest lawyer and a good father while sorting out his romantic complications, he may seem like the classic stereotype of the testosterone-driven Italian male as an emotional volcano. But Diego de Silva takes the stereotype and brings it to uninhibited, unrestrained --and endearing--literary life. --Nick DiMartino, Nick's Picks, University Book Store, Seattle, Wash.