Italian Love Cake (VIA Folios #149)

Gail Reitano

$21.00

This product is not returnable.

Publication Date: May 11th, 2021

Publisher:

Bordighera Press

ISBN:

9781599541600

Pages:

324

Description

Marie Genovese looks out from her apartment window above the Five & Ten and wonders how she'll save the failing store she's inherited from her mother. In a historical moment overshadowed by fear, economic uncertainty, and the controlling behavior of men, a powerful line of women-living and dead-helps Marie navigate her path to independence.

With the realist detail of Sinclair Lewis and the modern, feminist sensibility of Elena Ferrante, Italian Love Cake is the account of a woman thwarted in her self-expression and autonomy. Gail Reitano sets the story in a deeply patriarchal culture, but boundaries between masculine power and feminine exaltation are blurred and frequently crossed. In this Depression-era portrait of a first-generation Italian-American woman, Marie Genovese asserts her own mind, and her sexuality, on the way to achieving her economic dreams.

About the Author

Gail Reitano grew up in the southern New Jersey Pine Barrens. She graduated from Rutgers University and lived in London for twelve years before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. Her fiction, memoir and personal essays have appeared in Glimmer Train, Catamaran Literary Reader, and Ovunque Siamo among others, and have been featured on public radio in the Bay Area. Italian Love Cake is her first novel.

Praise for Italian Love Cake (VIA Folios #149)

One of the best novels I have read in a year or two. I was riveted to every single word. I adore the character of Marie, the store, and Ada, and the era. A first novel— hard to believe because it is so accomplished. The language, the characterization, the plot, the setting. I was only sorry to finish it and tried to drag out the last few pages. Brava!

--Joan Steinau Lester, Author of Loving Before Loving: A Marriage in Black and White

Set in the same New Jersey territory that Philip Roth carves out in many of his novels, including The Plot Against America, Reitano’s narrative takes place in the late 1930s, when some Italians supported the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Italian Love Cake moves deftly from the last days of the Depression, through FDR’s fireside chats, to the brink of World War II.

--Jonah Raskin, for the "Pacific Sun", Author of the forthcoming novel “Beat Blues, San Francisco, 1955”

Elena Ferrante’s American counterpart…a beautiful journey of a woman asserting her sexuality while a small town witnesses her feminist and political awakening in late 1930s America. A real gem.

--Kim Chernin, Author of In My Mother’s House

Sparks fly from the first page to the last in this unconventional novel written with mastery and daring about relationships.

--Renate Stendhal, Author of Kiss Me Again, Paris