Smalltime (eBook)

A Story of My Family and the Mob

Russell Shorto (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021
288 Seiten
W. W. Norton & Company (Verlag)
978-0-393-24559-2 (ISBN)

Infos

Best-selling author Russell Shorto, praised for his incisive works of narrative history, never thought to write about his own past. He grew up knowing his grandfather and namesake was a small-town mob boss but maintained an unspoken family vow of silence. Then an elderly relative prodded: You're a writer-what are you gonna do about the story?Smalltime is a mob story straight out of central casting-but with a difference, for the small-town mob, which stretched from Schenectady to Fresno, is a mostly unknown world. The location is the brawny postwar factory town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The setting is City Cigar, a storefront next to City Hall, behind which Russ and his brother-in-law, "e;Little Joe,"e; operate a gambling empire and effectively run the town.Smalltime is a riveting American immigrant story that travels back to Risorgimento Sicily, to the ancient, dusty, hill-town home of Antonino Sciotto, the author's great-grandfather, who leaves his wife and children in grinding poverty for a new life-and wife-in a Pennsylvania mining town. It's a tale of Italian Americans living in squalor and prejudice, and of the rise of Russ, who, like thousands of other young men, created a copy of the American establishment that excluded him.An urgent and intimate exploration of three generations of the American immigrant experience. Smalltime is a moving, wryly funny and richly detailed memoir by a masterful writer of historical narrative.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 2.2.2021
• Zusatzinfo: 8 illustrations
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
• Schlagworte: 20th century • America • American dream • Father • godfather • History • Immigrant • Italian • Italian American • Johnstown • Mafia • Memoir • Mobster • pa • Pennsylvania • Small Town • Son
• ISBN-10: 0-393-24559-4 / 0393245594
• ISBN-13: 978-0-393-24559-2 / 9780393245592