Mount Allegro: A Memoir of Italian American Life

by Jerre Mangione

Overview

Mount Allegro is an extraordinary memoir, a celebration of Sicilian life, an engaging sociological portrait, a moving reminiscence of a fledgling writer's escape from the restrictive culture in which he grew up. Jerre Mangione's autobiographical chronicle of his youth in a Sicilian community in Rochester is one of the truly enduring books about the immigrant experience in this country. Family squabbles, soul-nourishing food, and the casting of evil eyes are only some of the ingredients of this richly textured book, although they must all take second place to its unforgettable characters. As Eugene Paul Nassar writes in the book's Foreword, "Mount Allegro . . . gave a literary visibility and identity, amiable and appealing, to a poorly understood ethnic group in America, and did so at a very high level of artistry."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815604297
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	03/01/1998
Series:	New York Classics
Edition description:	1ST SYRACU
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.73(d)

About the Author

Jerre Mangione was the former coordinating editor of the Federal Writers' Project and professor emeritus of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of ten books, including The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers' Project, 1935-1943 (reprinted by Syracuse University Press) and An Ethnic at Large.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	ix
	Introduction	xv
1	When I Grow Up	1
2	Family Party	14
3	Mr. Michelangelo's Spite Wall	38
4	Talking American	49
5	God and the Sicilians	67
6	Evil Eye	100
7	The Unholy Three	117
8	Sicilian Virgin	152
9	A Man and His Vice	166
10	Uncle Nino and the Underworld	181
11	American Pattern	207
12	New Bread, Old Wine	225
13	Welcome to Girgenti	246
14	Blighted Land	265
	Finale	287

Editorial Reviews

Jerre Mangione, who was born in Mount Allegro in 1909, takes you into the heart of these Little Italys and describes its people and their thoughts and ways. He does it with nostalgic warmth and has somehow recaptured all the freshness of the original color.

The New York Times

One of the best books yet published in its field-a book in which you will learn more about the making of an American than in the most solemn or fictional volumes that purport to tell you all about the subject.

San Francisco Chronicle

Jerre Mangione, who was born in Mount Allegro in 1909, takes you into the heart of these Little Italys and describes its people and their thoughts and ways. He does it with nostalgic warmth and has somehow recaptured all the freshness of the original color.

The New York Times

One of the best books yet published in its field-a book in which you will learn more about the making of an American than in the most solemn or fictional volumes that purport to tell you all about the subject.

San Francisco Chronicle