"Johnny Once" is a family saga, chronicling the Rosarios, born and bred in the loud and gaudy Italian American enclave, Bensonhurst. It is a New York City story--peopled by a cross-section of urban ethnics: blacks, Latins, and whites (Italians, Jews, Irish, and WASPS accounted for). It is about racial and electoral politics, how they intersect and how they can rend the city's heart. It is about the effort to reconcile current life and values--in this case, embodied by Manhattan's liberal and sophisticated Upper West Side--with the pull of personal history and roots--Brooklyn's standpat and...

"Johnny Once" is a family saga, chronicling the Rosarios, born and bred in the loud and gaudy Italian American enclave, Bensonhurst. It is a New York City story--peopled by a cross-section of urban ethnics: blacks, Latins, and whites (Italians, Jews, Irish, and WASPS accounted for). It is about racial and electoral politics, how they intersect and how they can rend the city's heart. It is about the effort to reconcile current life and values--in this case, embodied by Manhattan's liberal and sophisticated Upper West Side--with the pull of personal history and roots--Brooklyn's standpat and...