The Italian American Reader has been seven decades in the making. It could simply and accurately be described as a dazzlingly smart and lively collection of superb works by some of America's most gifted writers. All their surnames happen to end in vowels, true, but that need not affect your enjoyment of this volume one way or the other. America, too, is an Italian name ending in a vowel.
Inside, there are nearly seventy excellent things for you to read -- excerpts from novels and memoirs, short stories, essays, and poems -- by the living and the dead, the famous and the obscure. Some date back to the 1930s; others were freshly hatched in the twenty-first century. They are variously moving, funny, poignant, lusty, biting, reverent, witty, loving, angry, and wise. They deal in the most profound aspects of our lives no matter who we are: home, love, sex, family, food, work, God, death. Many feature familiar Italian American characters, settings, and themes, but not all.
No matter what they are about, they are all in the end about who and what we are, the essence of history and memory and blood. There are gangsters in here, but there are grandmas too, along side lovers and fighters, thinkers and doers, cops and robbers, poets and grocers, sinners and saints. There are plenty of moms and pops and aunts and uncles and cousins. Frank Sinatra and the Virgin Mary make appearances.
This anthology is a genuine landmark -- the first general-reader hardcover collection of writing by Italian American authors. It is part manifesto, part Sunday dinner -- a gathering of voices old and new, some speaking in the accents of another age, some completely contemporary and assured, all together for the first time. To stand with all the other popular media images we represent, now, at last, one exists in written form, the literature of Italian American lifethe past, present, and future, which is also America's future.

The Italian American Reader: A Collection of Outstanding Stories, Memoirs, Journalism, Essays, and Poetry

Literature & Fiction

TOSCHES, Nick

Tonelli, Bill

United States

William Morrow

This anthology -- the first general-reader collection of writing by Italian American authors -- is part manifesto, part Sunday dinner. A gathering of voices old and new, some speak in the accents of another age, some completely contemporary and assured, and all together for the first time. To stand with all the other popular media images we represent, now, at last, one exists in written form, the literature of Italian American life.
Inside, there are excerpts from novels, memoirs, short stories, essays, and poems -- by the living and the dead, the famous and the obscure. The excerpts are variously moving, funny, poignant, lusty, biting, reverent, witty, loving, angry, and wise, dealing in the most profound aspects of our lives no matter who we are: home, love, sex, family, food, work, God, death.
Characters range from gangsters to grandmas, lovers to fighters, thinkers to doers, sinners to saints, with special appearances by Frank Sinatra and the Virgin Mary.

The Italian American Reader

Harper Paperbacks

With humor and insight, the author explores the meaning of personal history and family values as he leaves his native Philadelphia and traverses the country in search of people with whom he shares his last name.

The Amazing Story of the Tonelli Family in America: Twelve Thousand Miles in a Buick in Search of Identity, Ethnicity, Geography, Kinship and Home

History

Americas

Addison-Wesley

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Books by Tonelli, Bill