East Liberty
eBook - ePub

East Liberty

A Novel

  1. 112 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

East Liberty

A Novel

About this book

A fatherless boy is conflicted by his Catholic upbringing and his dreams in this coming-of-age novel

East Liberty is a poetic, passionate coming-of-age novel spanning 1955 to 1963, set in an Italian-American neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Roberto (Bobby) Renzo, the novel's fatherless narrator and main character, lives with Francene Renzo, his beautiful, mysterious, and unconventional mother who gave birth to him out of wedlock. Together the two habitually watch vintage Hollywood movies on TV. Orbiting Bobby and Francene are the Catholic Church; Francene's gothic, judgmental, Neapolitan parents; and the dramatically shifting culture at large hurtling toward them.

While urged by the nuns at his school to pursue the priesthood — though his dream is to be a big-league baseball player — Bobby is drawn toward the temptations of the secular world, and finds himself involved in petty crimes and seduced by his awakening sexuality. As he emerges from his childhood cloud of innocence, his desire to know about his father becomes acute, and he is forced to confront the confusion and contradictions that rule his life.

First published in hardcover in 2001, East Liberty won the Carolina Novel Award and was named a finalist for Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Award in Literary Fiction. This paperback edition features a new foreword by Fred Gardaphé, a distinguished professor of English and Italian American Studies at Queens College/CUNY and the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute.

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Yes, you can access East Liberty by Joseph Bathanti in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Historical Fiction. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Table of Contents
  5. Foreword
  6. Chapter 1
  7. Chapter 2
  8. Chapter 3
  9. Chapter 4
  10. Chapter 5
  11. Chapter 6
  12. Chapter 7
  13. Chapter 8
  14. Chapter 9
  15. Chapter 10
  16. Chapter 11
  17. Chapter 12
  18. Chapter 13