The Wine of Youth

This new edition of the legendary Dago Red, first published in 1940, contains seven new stories, including "A Nun No More" and "My Father’s God." "A group of sketches, rather than short stories, by the author of Wait Until Spring, Bandini. Fante to me captures the lusty, violent, warmhearted, passionate spirit of his Italian-American compatriots far better than any writer. There's none of the turgidity, the sensationalism, the "instinctual grunts" of di Donato. Here is one family, almost certainly Fante's -- the arrogant, swaggering male father; the worn gentle mother who cries about everything concerning God and her children; and the boys, good-bad roughnecks at the parochial school, at communion, at home. And underneath it all one senses Fante's deep affection, which includes a certain humorous tolerance, for these simple, fervent, hot-tempered people." -Kirkus Reviews