A party in the hills of northern Italy descends into an outlandish rite of passage in this story of the precarity of youth – the dark, intense international sensation It’s the beginning of summer. Isa M., a literature student, is throwing a party at her family’s villa on the outskirts of Turin. The music is loud, the drinks are flowing, and the garden is packed with friends – and maybe a few gatecrashers. The only guest who hasn’t arrived yet is Ezio, the boy she’s falling in love with. Then an anonymous gift turns up on the kitchen table: a bottle of wine with a card that reads, Unless someone touches the cassowary before one a.m., Ezio dies. At first it seems like a prank. Except Ezio still isn’t answering his phone. And no one’s sure who brought the bottle. Or what, exactly, a cassowary is . . . As the hours tick by and the undergrads wade further into a heady mix of alcohol, drugs, jealousy, lust and dread – the gravity of the dare sinks in.
