If You Eat, You Never Die: Chicago Tales

By Tony Romano

Book Overview

In a neighborhood on Chicago's outskirts, Fabio and Lucia Comingo have built a new American life--and struggle to comprehend the influences that distract and change their restless young sons. Through this masterful evocation of a time and place, Tony Romano, the acclaimed author of When the World Was Young , brings a first-generation Italian American family vividly and poignantly alive in closely related tales at once joyous, heartbreaking, and honest. Weaving two dozen stories into a stunning, cohesive family history, Romano gives readers hope for togetherness amid the painful generational cycle of loss and redemption--as children grow and learn, and decide which treasures of cultural inheritance they will cherish.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060857943
• ISBN13: 9780060857943
• Release Date: December 2008
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Literary Treasure

Tony Romano's second book is a literary treasure. I've gone back and read "Fixing a Hole" six times. What a great story! "Confidences" is another story that shows Romano at his best. The scenes between Fabio and Serafina, Fabio's first love, are similar to Victoria's scenes with the priest in Romano's novel When the World Was Young. The reader can feel the sexual tension between Serafina and Fabio, and although both move on to other spouses, the reader reflects on the bittersweet fact that all of us have a Serafina or Fabio in our deep and distant pasts. The other amazing thing about this book is the way the stories are arranged. The arrangement is similar to Faulkner's The Unvanquished. The book is not quite a novel, but the stories are all connected to one another. If You Eat, You Never Die deserves high praise. You won't be disappointed reading this book.