Italian Women in Black Dresses reads like a memoir, detailing the life of a family across generations and giving us a moving and haunting portrait of the Italian mother who is the center around which this family revolves. The mother's stories and words shape the lives of her daughter and granddaughter, but this book is about much more than ethnicity. Gillan's work succeeds in transcending any single identity category and explores instead the multiple ways in which each of us learns to identify him or herself.
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Winner of the 2006 Pietro Di Donato and John Fante Literary Award from The Grand Lodge of the Sons of Italy, New York State Robert Viscusi takes a comprehensive look at Italian American writing by exploring the connections between language and culture in Italian American experience and major literary texts. Italian immigrants, Viscusi argues, considered even their English to be a dialect of Italian, and therefore attempted to create an American English fully reflective of their historical, social, and cultural positions. This approach allows us to see Italian American purposes as profoundly situated in relation not only to American language and culture but also to Italian nationalist narratives in literary history as well as linguistic practice. Viscusi also situates Italian American writing within the "eccentric design" of American literature, and uses a multidisciplinary approach to read not only novels and poems, but also houses, maps, processions, videos, and other artifacts as texts.
“The book I most often give as a gift to cheer people up.” —Hilary Mantel “Tart, beguiling, witty and compassionate, Madeleine St. John’s novel is a literary boost for the spirits.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air “A deceptively smart comic gem.” –The New York Times Book Review “Witty and delicious.” –People The women in black, so named for the black frocks they wear while working at Goode’s department store, are busy selling ladies’ dresses during the holiday rush. But they somehow find time to pursue other goals… Patty, in her mid-thirties, has been working at Goode’s for years. Her husband, Frank, eats a steak for dinner every night, watches a few minutes of TV, and then turns in. Patty yearns for a baby, but Frank is always too tired for that kind of thing. Sweet, unlucky Fay wants to settle down with a nice man, but somehow nice men don’t see her as marriage material. Glamorous Magda runs the high-end gowns department. A Slovenian émigré, Magda is cultured and continental and hopes to open her own boutique one day. Lisa, a clever and shy teenager, takes a job at Goode’s during her school break. Lisa wants to go to university and dreams of becoming a poet, but her father objects to both notions. By the time the last marked-down dress is sold, all of their lives will be forever changed. A pitch-perfect comedy of manners set during a pivotal era, and perfect for fans of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Women in Black conjures the energy of a city on the cusp of change and is a testament to the timeless importance of female friendship.
Italy is a country synonymous with style and beauty in all aspects of life: the rich history of Rome, Renaissance art of Florence, graceful canals of Venice, high fashion of Milan, signature pasta alla bolognese of Bologna, colorful architecture of Portofino and winking blue waters of Capri and the Amalfi Coast, among many others. Italians themselves live effortlessly amid all this splendor, knowing instinctively just the type of outfit to throw on, design element to balance, or delectable ingredient to add.
In By the Breath of Their Mouths, Mary Jo Bona examines the oral uses of language and the liberating power of speech in Italian American writing, as well as its influences on generations of assimilated Italian American writers. Probing and wide-ranging, Bona's analysis reveals the lasting importance of storytelling and folk narrative, their impact on ethnic, working-class, and women's literatures, and their importance in shaping multiethnic literature. Drawing on a wide range of material from several genres, including oral biographies, fiction, film, poetry, and memoir, and grounded in recent theories of narrative and autobiography, postcolonial theory, and critical multiculturalism, By the Breath of Their Mouths is must reading for students in Italian American studies in particular and ethnic studies and multiethnic literature more generally.
This book with online video (111 min.) will introduce the reader to the tambourine and folk dance tradition of Southern Italy, the Tarantella. Students will learn the techniques of Tarantella tambourine playing as well as the history of this ancient tradition. This book reflects 25 years of field research and performance by the author, Alessandra Belloni
