Jack Frusciante Has Left the Band is Enrico Brizzi

Enrico Brizzi

Enrico Brizzi is an Italian writer. He is best known for his novel Jack Frusciante è uscito dal gruppo....

's first novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

. Brizzi wrote it at the age of eighteen and it was first published in 1994. The name "Jack Frusciante" is a deliberate modification of John Frusciante

John Frusciante

John Anthony Frusciante is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, record and film producer. He is best known as the former lead guitarist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, with whom he had been for a number of years and recorded five studio albums...

, the guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...

.

The novel, first published by independent Ancona-based Transeuropa, went out of print 15 times before the rights to it were sold to more solid publishers.
By the year 2000, the novel had sold over one million copies in Italy. A film had also been made, and the book was published throughout Europe, in the US, Japan, Korea and South America.

Brizzi is regarded as one of Italy's most poplar young writers.

Plot

Jack Frusciante Has Left the Band tells the story of the relationship between Alex, a 17 year old rebel, and Aidi, a girl who enters his life out of the blue one Sunday with a phone call. She asks about a poetry book and they end up talking about their projects and aspirations. Before they part she kisses him on the cheek. Alex falls for her, and later asks her to be his girlfriend. She begins behaving increasingly coldly to him until she states that she doesn't want any relationship because she'll be leaving for the States the following year and doesn't want to be in a long-distance relationship. Alex accepts her decision. Nonetheless, they maintain a relationship that, though not full-blown love, is stronger than mere friendship. Meanwhile, Alex takes a position in opposition to bourgeois society, rejecting the commonplace life that everyone expects him to be leading in the future ("a car, two children, a wife and a business consultant") and befriending Martino, the son of a rich family but an "outcast" like Alex himself.