A heartwarming amalgam of personal fact, fiction, and history.
An affecting tale of an Italian immigrant’s struggle to make a life for himself in the United States.
After the unification of Italy brought with it a wave of economic distress, Michelangelo’s father traveled to America twice, looking for a way to support his family. Despite his success on his first trip, even more dire straits, and the urging of his wife prompted him to return a second time. He had a heart attack while overseas and never saw his family again. Protagonist Michelangelo inherited his father’s curiosity and wanderlust and longed to visit his grave, located in Connecticut. In 1909, he finally disembarks for the United States, and immediately learns what his father learned: that this land of opportunity can also be an unforgiving, dangerous place. Undaunted, he finds work in Pennsylvania at a steel mill and then a job on a building project in Ohio before finally setting off for Connecticut, where he has some family. There, he starts to lay down roots. He marries a woman he adores, has four daughters, and buys a home. He suffers a terrible accident while chopping wood, however, which results in the amputation of his arm and leaves him nearly unable to find work. Also, after nine years of marriage, his wife suddenly dies, leaving him without any help raising his children. The state threatens to take his children away if he proves unable to quickly find a means to care for them. In her first book, author Rizzo creates a seamless blend of fiction and nonfiction, largely based on conversations with her family and friends, creating a memoirlike novel. The abiding themes are Michelangelo’s virtuous indomitability and his transformation from Italian day laborer to Italian-American, or from Michelangelo to Mike. His allegiance to the U.S. comes through most clearly during World War II: “Mike was an American. He cried as many nights as he had prayed for his cousins and remnant family in Italy.” This is a touching, refreshing reminder of how much prosperity can spring from a generous spirit.
A heartwarming amalgam of personal fact, fiction, and history.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9966687-0-5
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Giro Di Mondo
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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