An Annotated Bibliography of Italian American Studies

Fiction

Page 9:  Anania to Bonanno

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Anania, Michael. The Red Menace. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1984.
[A poetic recreation of the post World War II period in Nebraska.]
 
Angelo, Valenti. Nino. New York: The Viking Press, 1938.
[A novelization of the childhood of an immigrant boy with illustrations by the author.]
 
---. Golden Gate. New York: The Viking Press, 1939.
[A sequel to Nino which follows the Americanization of this child of Italian immigrants.]
 
---. Hills of Little Miracles. New York: The Viking Press, 1942.
[The Nino of his earlier works is now called Ricco who overcomes handicaps in his attempt to be accepted by other boys.]
 
---. The Rooster Club. New York: The Viking Press, 1944.
[Nino is a Boy Scout who tries to acquire American culture.]
 
Ardizzone, Tony. Heart of the Order. New York: Henry Holt & Co, 1986.
[Protagonist Danilo Bacigalupo, son of Italian immigrants, brother of many, grows up on Chicago's northside. In a game of alley baseball he hits a line drive that changes his life. The shot results in Mickey Meenan's death and the adoption of Mickey's spirit by Danny.]
 
---. The Evening News. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1986.
[A 1986 Flannery O'Connor Award winner, Ardizzone's first short-fiction collection, like television news, is filled with politics, war, human interest and sports stories. The author takes Italian-American characters and gives any audience a reason to read all about them.]
 
---. Larabi's Ox. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 1992.
[This a cycle of stories revolving around three characters, one who is Italian American, orients the contrasts of contemporary Arab culture, where modernization is strapped on the back of ancient tradition ruled by Allah's will.]
 
Arleo, Joseph. The Grand Street Collector. New York: Walker and Co, 1970.
[Based on the life of labor activist Carlo Tresca, a young boy investigates his father's role in a political assassination.]
 
Azpadu, Dodici. Saturday Night in the Prime of Life. Iowa City, IA: Aunt Lute Book Co., 1983.
[Depicts the intersection of ethnicity and sexuality by dramatizing the interaction between a traditional Sicilian American mother and her lesbian daughter.]
 
--- Goat Song. Iowa City, IA: Aunt Lute Book,Co., 1984.
[Azpadu dramatizes the streetlife of marginalized women.]
 
Barolini, Helen. Umbertina. New York: Seaview, 1979.
[A family saga that spans four generations, and can be read as the historical evolution of the Italian woman into the American woman, and as the feminization of the Italian woman as she becomes the Italian-American woman.]
 
---. Love in the Middle Ages. New York: Morrow, 1986.
[A love story of the 1980s about a middle-aged Italian-American woman and a Jewish American man.]
 
Basso, Hamilton. The View from Pompey's Head. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1954.
[While not directly concerning the Italian-American experience, this is one of the few of Basso's novels to deal symbolically with the relationship of the outsider to mainstream American life.]
Bellarosa, James M. A Problem of Plumbing and Other Stories. Santa Barbara, CA: J. Daniel, 1989.
[A collection of solid, often humorous, stories based on disability experiences.]
 
Benasutti, Marion. No Steady Job for Papa. New York: The Vanguard Press, Inc., 1966.
[A family saga based on the author's coming-of-age experience in a large Italian family living in Philadelphia during World War I.]
 
Bonetti, Edward. The Wine Cellar. New York: The Viking Press, 1977.
[Immigrant wine making and the culture that surrounds it is the foundation for these stories told from the second-generation's perspective.]
 
Bonanno, Margaret Wander. Ember Days. New York: Seaview Books, 1980.
[A four-generation, family saga featuring a young Catholic girl's attempt to free herself from her family and her religion.]

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