An Annotated Bibliography of Italian American Studies

Fiction

Page 14:  from Fante to Gambino

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Fante, John.  Dreams from Bunker Hill. Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow, 1982.
[The further adventures of Arturo Bandini in the Bunker Hill area of Los Angeles.]
 
---. 1933 Was a Bad Year. Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow, 1985.
[The story of a young Dominic Molise's struggle with the reality of foreign born parents living in poverty and the dream of becoming an American sports hero: at once the story of class and an individual's struggle during hard times in America.]
 
---. The Road to Los Angeles. Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow, 1985.
[Fante’s first attempt at a novel was rejected and published only after his death. It introduces Arturo Bandini and his romantic dreams of becoming a writer.]
 
---. The Wine of Youth. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1985.
[A reproduction and expansion of Fante’s first collection of stories, Dago Red, published in 1940.]
 
---. West of Rome. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow, 1986.
[Contains two novellas, "My Dog Stupid" and "Orgy," that both deal with dreams and how they affect our lives. The former deals with growing old in the 1960s and the latter, with growing up in the 1920s.]
 
Ferro, Robert. The Family of Max Desir. New York: NAL-Dutton. 1983.
[The love of another man causes Max Desir to challenge the limits of his family’s ability to accept difference. This is the first novel by Ferro who was one of the strongest writers of the Gay/American experience.]
 
---. The Blue Star. New York: Dutton, 1985.
[A Gay love story set in Florence where young Americans have come to let loose.]
 
---. Second Son. New York: NAL-Dutton, 1988.
[Ferro’s own experience with AIDS is the basis for his last novel.]
 
Fiore, Carmen Anthony. Vendetta Mountain. Princeton, NJ: Townhouse Publishing, 1987.
[A suspense novel based on the return pilgrimage of a third-generation Italian/American to his ancestral homeland in Basilicata.]
 
Forgione, Louis. The Men of Silence. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1928.
[One of the earliest dramatization of the business of the mafia and camorra of Italy.]
 
---. The River Between. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1924.
[A blind patriarch and once powerful leader of a Little Sicily leaves home to become a beggar leaving his son to work out the problems he’s created.]
 
217. Fumento, Rocco. Devil by the Tail. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1954.
[A boy growing up in a Massachusetts Italian neighborhood faces the tyranny of an Italian father in his attempts to forge his own identity.]
 
---. Tree of Dark Reflection. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962.
[A sequel, of sorts, in which the young boy of his first novel is now the father who must come to terms with his father’s past.]
 
Fuoco, Joe. Passengers and Kings. South Thomaston, ME: Conservatory of American Letters, Dan River Press, 1989.
[Nearly all of these stories are fictional portraits of characters the author has known.]
 
Gambino, Richard. Bread and Roses. New York: Avon, 1981.
[A family saga, based loosely on the life of the A. P. Giannini family, which stretches American history in order to cover key events in the history of Italian America. ]

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