DAGO RED

A group of sketches, rather than short stories, by the author of Wait Until Spring, Bandini. Fante to me captures the lusty, violent, warmhearted, passionate spirit of his Italian-American compatriots far better than any writer. There's none of the turgidity, the sensationalism, the ""instinctual grunts"" of di Donato. Here is one family, almost certainly Fante's -- the arrogant, swaggering male father; the worn gentle mother who cries about everything concerning God and her children; and the boys, good-bad roughnecks at the parochial school, at communion, at home. And underneath it all one senses Fante's deep affection, which includes a certain humorous tolerance, for these simple, fervent, hot-tempered people.