Ammaniti, Niccolo

Literate suspense for most readers.

Not all readers will see the male characters' eccentricity as charming, but as a romp this will find an international audience.

Social outcast Lorenzo tells his anxious parents that he's been invited on the ski trip with the snooty kids, then persuades his mother to drop him off a block from the train station so that he can slip back home and live unbothered for a week in a secret cellar in the family's apartment building...