An illiterate Calabrian in southern Italy owes money to his church and mayor. He skips town for the bustling streets of New York. Meeting an old friend, a fellow immigrant, he thanks him for help getting settled, and then steals his money. With a new parcel of wealth, he materializes from a small-time laborer into a big-time entrepreneur, soon becoming the tyrant of the local Italian American community. By pluck, luck, and unscrupulous business practices, this cunning character "makes America." There are riches, pleasure, and the beautiful Carmela. Then trouble. Comeuppance. Ambush....
An illiterate Calabrian in southern Italy owes money to his church and mayor. He skips town for the bustling streets of New York. Meeting an old frien...
Fiction. Edited with an introduction by Steven J. Belluscio. Set in turn-of-the-century Italian Harlem, the gripping immigrant epic THE FIRE IN THE FLESH puts into motion both a business plot and an occasionally intersecting love plot that ensnare its principal characters as they make their uneasy adjustments to the ways of urban America. In the love plot, which begins in Villetto, Italy, protagonist Agnese Filoppina bears the child of priest Gelsomino Merlino and, while bearing the brunt of the village's scorn, marries simpleton Michele Dantone and leaves with son Giovanni for Italian...
Fiction. Edited with an introduction by Steven J. Belluscio. Set in turn-of-the-century Italian Harlem, the gripping immigrant epic THE FIRE IN THE FL...
