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BETWEEN THE TWO

An intriguing but uneven modernist-tinged tale about a frustrated man.

A baby boomer makes his way through life and a television career in this debut novella.

Born to a working-class Italian American family in Brooklyn on the cusp of World War II, the unnamed narrator of this story grows up in a claustrophobic world of small, crowded apartments and sprawling extended families. A multiethnic kettle of Italian, Jewish, Black, German, and Russian residents, his neighborhood is a place of discovery for the boy while the Roman Catholic Church and the girls in his class prove dual sources of mystery. Then, in the seventh grade, his family relocates to a larger home in Queens—much to his chagrin. Upset over the move, he consoles himself with trips to the local movie house and library. The bookworm does not attend college after high school but instead goes to work at a series of jobs he doesn’t like—carpenter, stock boy, bank agent. “Coming off the beat generation,” he reflects, “I was more than beat. I was confused as to which direction to best cast my lot in life. Having been given none of the enormous perplexities, I would have to face on the abstract road lying ahead.” After an unsuccessful stint in the Navy and a few rocky romantic relationships, he winds up back in New York City, enrolled in the Electronics Circuits and Systems Program at the RCA Institute. From there, he has an opportunity to work as a colorist in TV production, just as he begins to start a family of his own. Has he finally found his true calling, the thing that will silence the doubts and dissatisfaction that have categorized his life up until now? Or is he fated to remain perpetually stuck between where he’s been and where he wants to go?

Violandi’s oblique prose is reminiscent of high modernism, particularly James Joyce. Here, he describes going to confession as a boy: “Roman Catholic at this tender age. One in good standing, I entered the confessional with apprehension, chastity and Priapus in hand. Confessing touching number one. When confirmation rolled around, I’d change my tune to confessing impure thoughts. Feeling more comfortable with the latter, for its truth.” There are some fun and surprising turns of phrase as well as some other eye-catching stylistic flourishes, such as annotations explaining the childhood cartoons and pop hits he references throughout the text. The world of TV production—when it’s presented in any detail—is engagingly antiquated. Unfortunately, there is not a lot to the book apart from its slippery prose. There’s little plot and insufficient character development—even the protagonist remains hardly known to readers, hidden behind the text’s indirect narration. Though the novella is only 123 pages, its dense aimlessness makes it feel quite a bit longer. The author rarely offers scenes and instead tells the whole story as continuous, discursive exposition. Readers will be disinclined to care much about the protagonist, and Violandi gives them few reasons to change their minds.

An intriguing but uneven modernist-tinged tale about a frustrated man.

Pub Date: June 13, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-578-29125-3

Page Count: 123

Publisher: KDP

Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2022

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THE WEDDING PEOPLE

Uneven but fitfully amusing.

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  • New York Times Bestseller

Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.

Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.

Uneven but fitfully amusing.

Pub Date: July 30, 2024

ISBN: 9781250899576

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024

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THE UNRAVELING OF JULIA

The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.

Scottoline’s latest links her great love of Italy with her long record of female-centered crime fiction.

Julia Pritzker has a presentiment that something terrible is around the corner, but she never imagines just how terrible: When her husband, Philadelphia attorney Mike Shallette, tries to protect her from a man who grabs her designer bag, he gets stabbed to death before her eyes. Julia’s grief becomes laced with guilt when she realizes that her daily horoscope had predicted a calamity she’s now convinced she could have prevented. The news from Italian attorney Massimiliano Lombardi that his late client has left her millions in cash and an estate worth nearly as much again doesn’t comfort her, but it does provide distraction—especially since she’s never heard of Emilia Rossi and has no idea why she’s been chosen as her heir. Since Julia, adopted at an early age by a couple who’ve been dead for years, wonders if Emilia might have been her biological grandmother, she travels to Chianti in hope of recovering some of Emilia’s DNA. Unfortunately, caretakers Anna Mattia Vesta and Piero Fano have burned all of Emilia’s clothing and personal items on her orders, so there’s nothing left to test. Growing convinced that the stars are directing her and that her history is rooted in Emilia’s decrepit house, Julia turns down repeated offers for the property and resolves to secure evidence confirming the relationship between Emilia and her. Now all she has to do is protect herself from the shadowy figures tracking and following her and recover from a series of vivid, hallucinatory nightmares that seem to be the cost of claiming her heritage.

The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.

Pub Date: July 15, 2025

ISBN: 9781538769997

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025

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