A meandering, wonderfully colorful hop-skip-and-a-grunt tour of the Little Italy that tourists wish they could visit, told...
New York’s greatest newspaper columnist (Not Exactly What I Had in Mind, 1997, etc.) does another number on da Mob. (You got a problem with that?)
We want to thank Breslin’s brain for remembering that he’s still the funniest crime writer on the planet This sentimental, wildly comic return to form from the guy who blazed to glory so many years ago with The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight (1969), is pure pleasure, with a belly laugh on almost every page. We meet aging, lazy, but still vastly intimidating mob boss Fausti “The Fist” Dellacava, a former prizefighter so adverse to losing that his bookies stay up all night trying to dream up ways to turn The Fist’s unlucky wagers into winners. ("Either I count money on Saturday night or I get choked to death," thinks one bookie. "That's only fair.") The Fist is having an increasingly difficult time holding on to his Greenwich Village turf, as his smart but slightly naive nephew, also named Fausti, tries to figure out if he wants to go into the family business. Only Fausti the Younger is brave enough to risk The Fist’s wrath when he impulsively eats The Fist under the table in front of mob lieutenants Baldy Dom, Quiet Dom, and Dom Dom. But Fausti also has doubts about his uncle’s morals: The Fist has been living a double life, shuttling across Manhattan between two wives with three kids each while pretending nobody notices. When young Fausti gets a summer job as lifeguard on Rockaway Beach, he inadvertently sets off a vendetta when he fails to save the life of a minor Gotti gang member. Playing the sidelines, with all bets covered, is the ambitious, media-savvy Father Phil Napolitano, a distant relative of the Dellacavas who preaches that “there never was a stand-up man like” Jesus, and Judas Iscariot “should have died in his mother’s womb,” but “we must give some people the benefit of the doubt. We shouldn’t be too quick to whack some guy.”
A meandering, wonderfully colorful hop-skip-and-a-grunt tour of the Little Italy that tourists wish they could visit, told in Breslin’s distinctively snappy, side-of-the-mouth style.Pub Date: May 23, 2001
ISBN: 0-316-11845-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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