"Reading some books feels aspirational, the attainment of an ideal, rather than an immediately realistic undertaking. It's with this in mind that we recommend The Catholic School . . . Painstakingly researched and semi-autobiographical, the novel is based on a brutal real-life crime: the rape, torture, and murder of two young women by three men in 1975. The novel is part true crime, part coming of age, and explores sex, violence, and masculinity in contemporary Italy." –The A.V. Club, "Books to Read in August"
"[Albinati's] scrutiny of the infamous 'Circeo massacre' . . . yields an intense and intimate disquisition on masculinity, violence, and social class in 1970s Rome . . . The real focus of Albinati's 'obsessive inquest' are the psychosexual impulses and socioeconomic forces behind the incidents, and the gnawing possibility that their root causes might be more than upper-class ennui and entitlement, something even uglier and essential to human nature . . . [
The Catholic School] is a knot of interlocking philosophical concerns that the author has spent a lifetime trying to untangle."
–Brendan Driscoll, Booklist (starred review) "A vast, philosophically charged novel of education, faith, and crime . . . A little goes a long way, and there's a lot of it."
–Kirkus Reviews