Nicky D. from L.I.C.: A Narrative Portrait of Nicholas Detommaso

In this 4""x101/2"" volume, writer and designer Lehrer (i mean you know) tries to recreate the hyperkinetic, run-on speech of the 72-year-old retired dockworker Nicholas DeTommaso from Long Island City, Queens. When the material is fresh and interesting--which is more often than not--the changing fonts and sizes and the zigzagging typesetting are effective, but when the material is stale (as with the recipes for meatballs and marinara sauce), they cannot save it. Nicky D. seems unaware that the camera is rolling, so to speak, as he talks about his life. Because of osteomyelitis, he spent eight years of his childhood in the pediatric ward of an orthopedic hospital. When he returned home, his brothers beat him up, which was a shock after the sheltered world of the hospital. ``They made a frankenstein outta me.'' ``Marriage never was meant for me,'' says DeTommaso, ``i stuck with my mother she was the only lady i ever lived with except for my one big mistake in 1950,'' when he was married for six weeks. DeTommaso is often vulgar and not racially sensitive (``if you gotta kill somebody kill somebody who's the same color as you or else everybody's gonna make a big to-do about it''). Still, throughout the book, readers will be aware that this is DeTommaso as reconstituted by Lehrer--with the subtle emphases of type placement, changes in typeface, lack of punctuation and capitalization and the ever-present transliteration (gotta, gonna, etc.). (Oct.)