Reflective and melancholy; well-told tales of the Italian-American experience.
A short story collection, primarily starring Italian-American Charlie Marino, by author Panella (The Other Side: Growing up Italian in America, 2012, etc.).
In “Original Sin,” a young Sicilian flees to America in 1900 after killing his abusive father, who deserted his wife and family for another woman. Wealthy and in his 70s, the man returns to Sicily 50 years later, seeking reunion with the love of his life, the girl he abandoned to save himself. This set piece strikes at the heart of the man’s relationship with women, his commitment or lack thereof, and his place in society, sometimes forged in violence. Other stories deal directly with Charlie’s life and liaisons, including the one with Felicia, or “Fell.” Charlie wants to be a writer in spite of rejection, but he’s too lonely to wait for a breakthrough before settling down. Although Charlie and Fell have a child, their marriage does not last. Women anticipate Charlie’s infidelity, even as he vows to never leave, but his mother, Rose, believes he’s “a good boy.” In “A Symbiotic Relationship,” Charlie snags a teaching job by fabricating a tale of being shot in the leg (during the interview, he drops his pants to display the wound, which was self-inflicted), and is touted on campus as a raconteur. In this collection, women are problematic: “Their sensuality was offset by a cloying desperation, and a need to dominate.” This quietly powerful collection is a welcome exercise in economy—plots, settings and characters are all lightly sketched. Here and there, Charlie’s connections to other characters are unclear. A wistful sadness resonates; happiness, when it comes, is short-lived. At times, the focus shifts to Charlie’s father, Hank, a bar owner who is seldom home, leaving Rose at loose ends. Yet Hank can switch from brute force to soulfulness, as when instructing his son on the deleterious effects of alcohol. Hank’s relationship with women is equally tortured. Reflecting upon life with Rose and another woman, Hank realizes he didn’t get what he wanted—friendship—and he remains baffled about women and love. Like father, like son.
Reflective and melancholy; well-told tales of the Italian-American experience.Pub Date: June 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-1609102838
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Booklocker.com, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Corrosive dispatches from the divided heart of America.
Edgy humor and fierce imagery coexist in these stories with shrewd characterization and humane intelligence, inspired by volatile material sliced off the front pages.
The state of race relations in post-millennial America haunts most of the stories in this debut collection. Yet Adjei-Brenyah brings to what pundits label our “ongoing racial dialogue” a deadpan style, an acerbic perspective, and a wicked imagination that collectively upend readers’ expectations. “The Finkelstein 5,” the opener, deals with the furor surrounding the murder trial of a white man claiming self-defense in slaughtering five black children with a chainsaw. The story is as prickly in its view toward black citizens seeking their own justice as it is pitiless toward white bigots pressing for an acquittal. An even more caustic companion story, “Zimmer Land,” is told from the perspective of an African-American employee of a mythical theme park whose white patrons are encouraged to act out their fantasies of dispensing brutal justice to people of color they regard as threatening on sight, or “problem solving," as its mission statement calls it. Such dystopian motifs recur throughout the collection: “The Era,” for example, identifies oppressive class divisions in a post-apocalyptic school district where self-esteem seems obtainable only through regular injections of a controlled substance called “Good.” The title story, meanwhile, riotously reimagines holiday shopping as the blood-spattered zombie movie you sometimes fear it could be in real life. As alternately gaudy and bleak as such visions are, there’s more in Adjei-Brenyah’s quiver besides tough-minded satire, as exhibited in “The Lion & the Spider,” a tender coming-of-age story cleverly framed in the context of an African fable.
Corrosive dispatches from the divided heart of America.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-91124-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
A masterly encapsulation of modern Russian history, this book more than fulfills the promise of Towles' stylish debut, Rules...
Sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal for writing a poem deemed to encourage revolt, Count Alexander Rostov nonetheless lives the fullest of lives, discovering the depths of his humanity.
Inside the elegant Metropol, located near the Kremlin and the Bolshoi, the Count slowly adjusts to circumstances as a "Former Person." He makes do with the attic room, to which he is banished after residing for years in a posh third-floor suite. A man of refined taste in wine, food, and literature, he strives to maintain a daily routine, exploring the nooks and crannies of the hotel, bonding with staff, accepting the advances of attractive women, and forming what proves to be a deeply meaningful relationship with a spirited young girl, Nina. "We are bound to find comfort from the notion that it takes generations for a way of life to fade," says the companionable narrator. For the Count, that way of life ultimately becomes less about aristocratic airs and privilege than generosity and devotion. Spread across four decades, this is in all ways a great novel, a nonstop pleasure brimming with charm, personal wisdom, and philosophic insight. Though Stalin and Khrushchev make their presences felt, Towles largely treats politics as a dark, distant shadow. The chill of the political events occurring outside the Metropol is certainly felt, but for the Count and his friends, the passage of time is "like the turn of a kaleidoscope." Not for nothing is Casablanca his favorite film. This is a book in which the cruelties of the age can't begin to erase the glories of real human connection and the memories it leaves behind.
A masterly encapsulation of modern Russian history, this book more than fulfills the promise of Towles' stylish debut, Rules of Civility(2011).Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-670-02619-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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