A riveting, albeit sugar-coated, account punctuated with ingenuity, family feuds, tragedy, and spellbinding success.
In this intriguing novel based on the life of Ernest Gallo, Richardson tracks the rise of the billionaire Californian winemaker.
When Ernest Gallo was young, his Aunt Tillie gave him a tarot card reading which predicted that he would become “a very successful businessman…[in] the oil business…or the wine business.” The young Ernest could not possibly perceive the alarming accuracy of his aunt’s prediction or the arduous journey ahead of him. One of three brothers, Ernest was born in 1909 in Jackson, California, into a humble Italian immigrant family. In the early 1920s, his parents settled in Modesto, purchasing arable land where they would plant and cultivate a vineyard and sell their grapes. Ernest found himself at constant loggerheads with his father, a deeply stubborn man, whose violent temper would later have tragic consequences. The novel charts the evolution of Ernest’s business brain, from his wily negotiations with unsavory market traders to becoming one of the world’s biggest wine producers. Richardson animates the Gallo’s ascendance with realistic, well-paced dialogue as in this warning from a neighbor: “A winery? Now? Boys, it’s the Dirty Thirties. You’ll end up worse than yer old man. Take my advice: Don’t do it. Stick to what you know.” Richardson portrays Gallo as an avuncular, approachable businessman, a stark contrast to “the 5-foot-4-inch terror of his industry,” as described by Forbes. She also glosses over his unpleasant standoff with the United Farmworkers Union in the 1970s, which gained him the reputation of being a bully. Richardson’s novel is part of The Mentoris Project, a series of books that aims to promote the successes of great Italians and Italian-Americans. This, to a degree, explains the author’s propensity to overlook Gallo’s less admirable characteristics. Nevertheless, the novel remains a charming, tenderly written tribute to Gallo and his remarkable achievements, which will certainly be of great interest to wine buffs, particularly those keen to discover more about the history of the American industry.
A riveting, albeit sugar-coated, account punctuated with ingenuity, family feuds, tragedy, and spellbinding success.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-947431-01-0
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Barbera Foundation, Inc.
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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