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"An Italian ROOTS"
The Washington Post Book World
At long last, Gay Talese, one of America's greatest living authors, employs his prodigious storytelling gifts to tell the saga of his own family's emigration to America from Italy in the years preceding World War II. Ultimately it is the story of all immigrant families and the hope and sacrifice that took them from the familiarity of the old world into the mysteries and challenges of the new - into a place that tested their loyalties, their love, and their links with the past. A stirring and personal epic of discovery, UNTO THE SONS reinforces Gay Talese's unique place of distinction in American Letters and as a chronicler of the American Experience.
An immigrant saga reminiscent of Roots begins in a small Italian village and spans three generations and two world wars to capture the essence of the Italian-American experience.
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Paperback, 627 pages
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Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria
by Mark Rotella (Author)
The jacket copy defines PW Forecasts editor Rotella's narrative as a "model travelogue," but it's much more. Even without a conventional conflict and plot, the author's intensity and personal commitment to a country and its inhabitants cast a spell. Anecdotes range from comedic-a long unseen relative scolds Rotella's father, "Thirty years and you don't write!"-to curiously romantic, as when the author's wedding ring slips off his finger while swimming and a "crazy aunt" exclaims, "That's good luck. Now you will have to return!" Descriptions of delicacies such as soppressata, capicola, fettucine and rag - simmered with pepperoni incite a desire to be there just for the luscious, succulent meals, supporting Rotella's belief that you simply can't get a bad meal in Italy. Calabria is a particularly vivid character; readers learn how much the region has been through: spoiled by drought, destroyed by earthquakes and plundered by barons and kings. Rotella points out the effects of Mafia control in Bianca, a small, decrepit city, and the economic destruction it causes, without belaboring or stereotyping the Italian-Mafia connection. Playful moments are equally memorable, detailing petty fig heists from trees belonging to unknown farmers. Such likable protagonists as Rotella's loving father, his wife, and guide Giuseppe are woven unobtrusively through the tale of a culture that counts among its children Tony Bennett, Phil Rizzuto and Stanley Tucci. The book is a love letter, and Rotella reinforces that feeling when he writes, "I am a romantic. With each trip back to Calabria, I've felt myself becoming not only more Calabrese but more Italian." Readers, whether Italian or not, will find themselves captivated by so much meticulously drawn history and enchanting terrain.
"Italian-Americans of a new generation are discovering their homeland, and they could not ask for a better guide than Mark Rotella." - Gay Talese
"The author's intensity and personal commitment to a country and its inhabitants cast a spell . . . Readers, whether Italian or not, will find themselves captivated." - Publishers Weekly
"Evocative, beautifully rendered travelogue/memoir by Publishers Weekly editor Rotella, recounting his adventures in Calabria, the toe of Italy's boot and the land of his ancestry..." - Kirkus Reviews
"Calabria deserves to be discovered and Mark Rotella is an enthusiastic and compassionate guide, traveling from the top to the toe of this least-known region of Italy to uncover the people, the food and the folk traditions that make up his Calabrian heritage." - Mary Taylor Simeti
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Calabrian Tales
by Peter Chiarella
Amazon Reader's Review: "Drawn from a true succession of personal family incidents, Calabrian Tales: A Memoir Of 19th Century Southern Italy by Peter Chiarella is a compelling saga about a family who lived in one of Italy's poorest regions more than a hundred years ago. Here are memorably crafted stories of inexplicable injustice, poverty, avarice, indomitable pride, and survival. Marianna (who is the author's great aunt) is a woman who mortifies her family by becoming the mistress of a wealthy noble. The resulting familial clashes, the trials of emigration, and the struggle to make a new life in America enhance this engaging and deftly written tale of enduring humanity, pride, and culture."
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A Sweet and Glorious Land: Revisiting the Ionian Sea
by John Keahey
Veteran newspaperman Keahey, now an editor and reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune, has retraced the footsteps of George Gissing, a Victorian writer (and good friend of Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells), who traveled to Southern Italy in 1897. His subsequent accounts became a classic in travel literature titled By the Ionian Sea. A hundred years later, Keahey visits such fascinating and historical destinations as Naples, Paola, Cosenza, Sybaris, Taranto, Crotone, Catanzaro, Reggio di Calabria, and Squillace and notes changes and similarities over the past century. The result is an informative and well-researched work on one of the most popular parts of Italy that provides a historical perspective on the area and its people. A detailed chronology, maps, the author's photographs, and a bibliography are all useful, but an index would have been helpful as well. Recommended for public libraries with large collections on travel and Victorian literature.
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Old Calabria
by Norman Douglas
When Norman Douglas visited Calabria, Italy in the early years of the 20th century, its wild, secluded, and enigmatic country attracted little interest and few tourists. But Douglas never followed the already-traveled path, and so, we have this classic in which he wittily escorts us from the promontory of Gargano to the tip of Aspromonte, and through the influences of many invaders. Elegant and literary, this remarkable travel book stands in a class of its own.
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Mafia, Peasants and Great Estates in Traditional Calabria: Society in
Traditional Calabria
by Pino Arlacchi (Author), Jonathan Steinberg (Translator)
Vivid study of social formations in southern Italy during the first half of this century that challenges established ideas about the homogeneous nature of Mediterranean peasant society and proffers a new understanding of how traditional societies are structured. Written by an acclaimed authority and former Under Secretary of the United Nations.
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