ABOUT THE BOOK

Deep inside the Vatican library, a priest discovers the rarest and most valuable art object ever found: the manuscript of "The Divine Comedy," written in Dante's own hand.

Via Sicily, the manuscript makes its way from the priest to a mob boss in New York City, where a writer named Nick Tosches is called to authenticate the prize. For this writer, the temptation is too great: he steals the manuscript in a last-chance bid to have it all. As this dark and twisted journey unfolds, so too does a parallel tale: the odyssey of Dante himself, a man trying to weave a poem that contains the sum of the world's wisdom and the very breath of the divine.

This novel combines Tosches' vast scholarship about "The Divine Comedy," Dante Alighieri, and the Middle Ages with an equally vast and intimate knowledge of the lowest murdering scum of New York's ugliest streets. In The Hand Of Dante is a work of astounding audacity and beauty, the masterwork that Nick Tosches has been building toward for years. Some will find it offensive; others will declare it transcendent; it is certain to be the most ragingly debated novel of the decade.

Reviews of the U.S Edition

'[Tosches] combines the starkness of Jim Thompson and the grittiness of Charles Bukowski with a highly literate sensibility...Mr. Tosches's powerful writing is often beautiful.' - Wall Street Journal

'Few writers would even think of this kind of book, much less attempt to write it. And somehow, the sheer audaciousness of Tosches' writing not only blasts through our resistance to suspend disbelief but it also makes most other fiction seem phony by comparison...Tosches is ready to take his place at the front of the class in contemporary American literature...an inspired piece of fiction.' - San Francisco Chronicle

'A splendid, passionate mess, with a moral fervor far exceeding most novels of better grooming.' - Will Blythe NY Times

'This is a singular American writer unafraid to wrestle with monstrous themes and to examine his own deep fearsome wounds - and break your heart with the beauty of language at the same time. You'll love it, you'll hate it, you won't be able to put it down.' - Orlando Sentinel

'Tosches has written a riveting read and a surreal, complicated work that measures up to the controversy it will generate.' Cleveland Plain Dealer

'It may be no more than a combination of metric deftness and artful stealing from the master, but a few passages here- about the wonder of prayer, and the astronomy of the soul, and the illimitable sadness of lost love-stand up not too shabbily against the radiance of the Commedia itself… the most audacious thing about In the Hand of Dante is the author's furious delivery of rare aesthetic bliss.' - Entertainment Weekly

'In the Hand of Dante is difficult, frustrating, and at times offensive and infuriating, but it jogs the mind, and in the end it earns a distinction that can be claimed by few recent novels: This is a book that deserves a second read.' - Rocky Mtn. News

'Deftly blending the sacred and the profane, Tosches boldly casts himself as the protagonist in his latest novel, an outrageously ambitious book in which he procures a purloined version of the original manuscript of The Divine Comedy while tracing Dante's journey as Dante struggled to complete his penultimate work.' - Publishers Weekly

'Tosches shows off an impressive breadth of knowledge on the life and times of Dante Alighieri, interweaving the story of Tosches' quest with that of the poet himself, alternating a hard-boiled literary voice with one that attempts to evoke the great work itself. Filled with rants on the whoredom of the publishing world, autobiographical braggadocio, and history lessons as well as discussions on linguistics, numerology, and theology, this book boldly treads the line between high art and vulgarity, begging the question as to whether it is a masterpiece or just plain pretentious!' - Booklist

'Tosches is one of the more intoxicating, infuriating writers around. . .the author is also a lyrical chronicler of Mafia culture and a formidable scholar of the classics.' - Book Magazine