Now in its fourth season, The Sopranos has become the most-watched TV show in America, putting Italian-Americans on the cultural front burner. Written with literary complexity, the series' has inspired more than a dozen tie-in books in three years, including an unusual number from academically oriented presses.
For example, Italian-American scholars and critics dissect the series' depiction of masculinity, religion, morality and psychotherapy in A Sitdown with the Sopranos: Watching Italian American Culture on TV's Most Talked About Series (Palgrave, Sept.), edited by Regina Barreca. Two more books plumb the characters' psychology while others use the show to explore broader social issues.
But however provocative the Sopranos may be, its creative revision of the gangster stereotype raises a larger question: Can popular depictions of Italian-American life break free of the mob? In honor of that often controversial Italian-American holiday, Columbus Day, let's take a look at the current state of the literature.
A Culture Through Food
When it comes to books about Italians, readers "tend to think of cookbooks or a book about the mob," observed Kris Kleindienst, co-owner of Left Bank Books in St. Louis, Mo.
Cookbooks, of course, represent another enduring stereotype: that Italians love food. Well, okay, there may be more than a grain of truth there: Italian and Italian-American cookbooks dominate the category, outstripping French cookbooks—the second most-popular cuisine—by about two to one on Ingram's database of active titles.
Some argue that cookbooks offer unique insight into the Italian-American experience. "The women who [usually] write these books are telling their stories through their recipes, through their food," said Michael Flamini, editorial director of Palgrave, a scholarly imprint of St. Martin's Press.
One such classic is Nancy Verde Barr's We Called It Macaroni (Knopf, 1990), with its blend of anecdotes about Italian-American customs and traditional recipes. This fall, she follows her roots back to Italy in Make It Italian (Knopf, Nov.). Meanwhile, in the anthology Milk of Almonds, edited by Louise DeSalvo and Edvidge Giunta (Feminist Press, Aug.), 50 Italian-American women explore the cultural power of food.
Men have found a voice in the kitchen as well. Actor Vincent Schiavelli has written two cookbooks rich with reminiscences: Bruculinu, America (Houghton, 1998), about growing up in Brooklyn, and Many Things Beautiful: Stories and Recipes from Polizzi Generosa (S&S, Oct.), inspired by a trip to his ancestral Sicily.
Where Are the Novelists?
But when it comes to serious writing on the Italian-American experience, the selection seems thin, especially compared to the many titles about Jewish and Irish immigrants. Though Regina Barreca's important new anthology, Don't Tell Mama! The Penguin Book of Italian American Writing (Penguin, Oct.), highlights more than 100 voices from the past 100 years, many of the selections have not been widely available in print.
In a 1993 essay in the New York Times Book Review, Gay Talese famously asked, "Where Are the Italian American Novelists?" It's true that a handful of critically acclaimed and successful novelists of Italian descent have emerged—such as Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo, Don DeLillo, David Baldacci, Lisa Scottoline and Wally Lamb. But most have avoided placing Italian American themes or characters at the center of their work. Whether by coincidence or not, those novelists who have grappled with such cultural themes—such as Frank Lentricchia, Rita Ciresi, Jay Parini, Louisa Ermelino and Roland Merullo—are somewhat less well known. (Mario Puzo's The Godfather remains the exception.)
In recent years, Italian-American voices have been most pronounced in nonfiction, though there hasn't been a breakout book on the immigrant experience since Talese's Unto the Sons (Knopf, 1992). While Sopranos star Joe Pantoliano's memoir about growing up in an Italian family in New Jersey, Who's Sorry Now (Dutton, Oct.), has a big media hook, other writers have traced their lineage back to Italy, such as Theresa Maggio in The Stone Boudoir (Perseus, Mar.).
Decades ago in publishing, the conventional wisdom held that blacks, Catholics and Italians didn't read. That adage has been proven wrong with the first two groups, but does it hold any truth for Italian-Americans?
Mauro DiPreta, an executive editor at Morrow who has published such authors as Joseph Wambaugh and Bill Zehme, doesn't think so. "For the first generation of hyphenated Americans, it's all about putting food on the table," he said. "But now, as second- and third-generation Italian-Americans have become better educated and have gotten better jobs, they have more time to read and write." In DiPreta's view, the stumbling block may be creative: "The big challenge for Italian-Americans is how do you write about the Italian-American experience without talking about the mob? Unless someone can write a story as compelling as a mob story, it won't be as big."
Italian-Americans may also face a cultural obstacle, argues Bill Tonelli, editor of The Italian American Reader, coming from Morrow in March. "There's a reason there hasn't been an Italian-American Portnoy's Complaint. It's antithetical to the Italian-American nature—they don't give [family secrets] up that easily," he explained.
In actively grappling with these questions, Flamini, DiPreta and a handful of other Italian-American editors in the industry are facing down any lingering doubts about the Italian-American market. For example, Norton senior editor Alane Salierno Mason has high hopes for a collection of short stories set in Yonkers, N.Y., called The Itch by David Prete, due next April. Mason compares Prete's affectless, literary language to that of James Baldwin.
Carole DeSanti, a v-p and editor-at-large at Penguin Putnam who has published Dorothy Allison, Terry McMillan and Ruth Ozeki (and contributed an essay to Don't Tell Mama!), also believes that there are Italian-American voices yet to be heard: "From a publishing point of view, we need to find and organize an audience. I am thrilled every time there's a trend—that's the way you get more books out and more voices heard."
