Party Animal

A surprising and spellbinding novel, its language razor-sharp and filled with little delights. San Pietro manages to capture, with graceful command, those very last days of youth – when everything feels charged with wonder and meaning, when life brims with poetry and adventure and a mysterious sense of freedom – VINCENZO LATRONICO, author of Perfection
A talon-sharp interrogation of friendship, jealousy, hubris, and desire told through a whirlwind of enthralling voices that cry out from the page. This bright flash of a novel will stay with you long after you read the last page – WILLIAM RAYFET HUNTER, author of Sunstruck
A dazzling and charismatic whodunnit filled with villas, prosecco, psychedelic drugs, a gorgeous depressed heiress, an upstart artist, a fortune teller, rival friends, a beautiful garden, a giant killer bird, and the possibility of love. It has a stylized, cinematic fuzz to it. I loved it – RITA BULLWINKEL, author of Headshot
Like locking eyes with a dangerous creature, Party Animal crackles through the reader with a bolt of glorious terror. Full of the heat and self-consciousness of youth, this is a humid, inventive, surreal novel about performance, fear and the discovery of beauty – SEÁN HEWITT, author of Open, Heaven
A rollercoaster read! From gossipy, fly-on-the-wall access to a party and all of its young attendees, to a crescendo of adrenalized prose. Leonardo San Pietro’s writing had me riveted – LOTTIE HAZELL, author of Piglet
A wild fever dream of youth, angst and hedonism. As it builds toward its terrible climax, Party Animal will have you questioning all of your life’s decisions, and itching to let loose with your friends just one last time – TOBI COVENTRY, author of He’s the Devil
Bingeable, wicked smart, inventive, whimsical. San Pietro has achieved the rarest of literary feats: a page-turner as entertaining as it is profound – NATALIE ROSE RICHARDSON, author of This Is an Actual Tragedy
A reminder that a youth misspent is a youth well spent. I downed this fizzy, bittersweet spritz of a novel in a single gulp – ANDREW RIDKER, author of Hope
Finally, a proper novel about twenty-year-olds – full of rhythm and yes, naivety, of courage and fun … A story of pure energy * Rivista Studio *
Certain books are able to capture, with deep understanding and a light touch, the state of an entire generation … The writing in this novel is a language completely its own, fleet-footed … pure, crystalline * L’Espresso *

Leonardo San Pietro

Leonardo San Pietro was born in Turin in 1997. He studied at the Holden School of Creative Writing and worked as a reader at Giulio Einaudi Editore. He recently completed a master’s degree in linguistic sciences in Bologna, where he lives. Party Animal, his first novel, received Italy’s Premio Mondello in 2025 and is now being translated into thirteen languages.

Todd Portnowitz

Todd Portnowitz’s translations from Italian include Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri (co-translated with the author), Long Live Latin by Nicola Gardini, and Go Tell It to the Emperor by Pierluigi Cappello, for which he received a Raiziss/de Palchi Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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