Customer Reviews

Abramo's Gift

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I purchased this book because of a review in my Sons of Italy magazine. It was well worth it. It was enjoyable and easy reading..read the last third of the book on a 2 hour train ride from NYC. Great way to pass the time..strongly suggested for Italian Americans..

Having been born, raised and having lived my entire adult life in the Youngstown, Ohio vicinity, I was extremely curious about this book, Abramo's Gift. After reading it, however, I found that the author's depiction of the human spirit and its triumphs over adversity, could have been cast in any city in the United States. No matter what the locale, the characters would have shown just as brightly despite the trying times that existed in a city like Youngstown at the turn of the 20th century.

I was sincerely touched by the lives of Abramo,the main character,his enemies and those he loved as if I had known them personally. The author's depiction of what appeared to be their very real human condition left me feeling immersed in their story. The descriptions of the places and the people sprang from the page into my imagination with vivid imagery so much so that their detailed experiences continue to linger in my thoughts long after I put the book down. I heartily recommend this book as an easy and enjoyable read that will entertain the booklover as well as enlighten them on the tribulations of life for immigrants in America. My hat is off to the author. I really enjoyed the book and look forward to the sequel or another of his works.

If there is one thing that history has shone us it is that trying to run away from your past never works. No matter where we try to go or what we do, there will always be some remnant or memory that lingers from the time that we think we want to forget.

I was reminded of this when I recently finished the book Abramo's Gift by author Donald Greco. His book, though set in the early 1900s, rings of so many lessons that we can and should learn from today. Abramo Cardone is a man who has experienced the loss of his beloved wife and child and has set off on a journey from his homeland of Italy to the Americas, namely Ohio, to begin anew. Still struggling with grief and unsure of where his life is headed, Abramo is faced with new challenges in the land of promise that will again cause him to love and risk loss at the sake of what he knows to be the right course of action.

You see, Abramo comes face to face with the reality that no matter where you are, there will be individuals who are hurting, will experience hurt or are intent on causing hurt. Case in point is Molly, a young woman full of life and promise who is violated and left with the knowledge that because of no fault of her own she might not be able to have children. While discussing this fate with her father, Greco gives us a look at the painful reality for so many who have been abused and have to face the aftermath. "You are not damaged goods, Moll," her father says to her. "It won't matter, Daddy," Molly responds. "It'll matter to the good ones," her father assures." And some may want you only for children, but the very best will want you only because of you ... Only you. And that will be the beginning of God's restitution to you."

What a beautiful passage, and it is made even more real to Molly as she remembers that the man who was there for her after the assault, Abramo, just wanted to help with no thought of himself. Through the life of this woman and a series of events that would cause his own life to be in danger as well, an important lesson is learned by our main character: You don't want to forget the past, just learn to use it as you move forward to help others and heal yourself. Abramo also realizes that if you are so blinded by what you have lost, you might not see what is available in front of you.

Abramo's Gift is really the author's gift to the world when it comes to a guide that we can use when we feel as though no one has gone through what we have. It helps us to face the very things that might be holding us back and gives us the strength to use our own experiences to be a blessing to someone around us.

Abramo's Gift is a special book in many ways. It tells a touching story of recent Italian and Irish immigrants in the United States to Youngstown, Ohio, around the year 1918, and particularly the story of Abramo Cardone, who leaves behind not only his Italian homeland, but the horrors of losing his lovely wife and first born daughter to a bloody civil war. He joins his uncle in Youngstown and starts over working in a local steel mill. From there he really only begins his story...

Abramo's Gift is written in a very fluid and easy to read style. Although I found how the characters took to one another as a bit predictable (too many loves at first sight) the plot nevertheless was kept in tact. And there is a message from this book and it is a message of love and family: No matter where you come from or who you are you will receive love when you give love. Family is not always your blood kin but those you chose as well.

Don Greco I believe has written a book that should have a wide readership and should cut across the book reader demographics. I could just as easily imagined reading this at age sixteen as I have read it this year, as I am almost forty-two years old. Because of its message and the quality of its story and writing I would recommend this as a good gift for those people close to you, those who you love. Recommended!

Abramo's Gift by Don Greco is a spellbinding chronicle: The sequence of events is set in motion with Abramo Cardone staring into the waves, wiping tears from his eyes and wondering if fellow passengers might have noticed as the ship approaches the New York Harbor. No one noticed. All eyes were fixed on the Statue of Liberty and the hope she fostered. Abramo's thoughts were filled with Angelina. That she and the baby daughter had been left behind laying in a grave an ocean from where his own would finally be filled him with more than a little melancholy.

Ellis Island, Battery Park, Abramo's uncle Michele brother of his deceased Mother, and a trolley, crowded streets and at last a hotel where he would spend his first night in America. It was all a little overwhelming for a young man who spoke no English.

Youngstown, Ohio, 1918 is a location filled with KKK pressure, Irish and Italian immigrants and more than a little social turbulence.

It has been five years since Angelina's passing away; Abramo arrives from Italy prepared to lay to rest his mourning and his old life in one of the low paying jobs found in the steel mills.

Before long Abramo gains favor from one of the three superintendents at Reid-Carnegie. Hugh Connolly has only admiration for the quiet, dedicated Abramo and his work habits, ability and ethic. Joe Hannon, on the other hand, was a co-worker who bore only abhorrence for Abramo.

The dark alley assault of Irish girl, Molly Harry, and Abramo's endeavors to give support to her are not unnoticed. Nor are they welcomed. Molly's brothers soon have her to hospital, it is left to a street child to aid the unconscious Abramo.

Writer Greco mesmerizes his readers with a cast of characters filled with verve and exuberance and angst. Greco exposes the inflexibility and exertions of the Irish and Italians who came to this country overflowing with expectation, as well as the enormous effort they undertook to carve a life for themselves in a land that was not always kind to them.

Scoundrels are often blatantly coarse; activists are frequently gallant, or, at times simply propelled into the role the fill by events. Dialog is gritty, persuasive and holds reader concentration from opening lines right on through the last paragraph.

A comprehensive and tight storyline, focused upon an extraordinary saga of everyday people orphans, immigrants, children of women who cannot care for them, social clubs and bars formed on ethnic or racial lines and suspicious of anyone who is not of their own ilk, and the church, politicians and police easily bribed, and jobs. It was vital in that time and place to have a job, no job meant no money, no hope and no way to live. Starvation was real. At last for the nearly hopeless came some hope in the shape of a home for street children named for an Irish Saint, and the beginning of Irish - Italian relationships not founded solely in the racial and ethnic tension which abounds on the pages of this well written, page turner of a novel.

Abramo's Gift is a forceful read filled with torment, rages bordering on murder and bad-tempered action, odium as well as kindness found in out of the ordinary and unanticipated corners. Abramo at last finds joyfulness and acceptance and begins a new life that is filled with the optimism and tranquility and affection and family and a home of his own that he had craved when he boarded the vessel intended to carry him to America. Enjoyed the read, happy to recommend.

Molly Martin
Reviewer

Abramo's Gift A Novel
by Don Greco


Abramo's Gift by Don Greco is a compelling story, a page turner. When you are in the story and flowing with it, time slips by. Put it down and the story calls to be picked up and read.
The story telling is well done; the author enchants his readers with small and large struggles and ideas as he shares his Irish and Italian characters as dozens of interactions carry on. The plot is multi-faceted and tight.
The Irish mill workers in Youngstown arrived earlier than the Italians and became well established. They have formed up into gangs and gather at social clubs, bars, and they keep their neighborhoods clear of intruders. Racial tension over jobs between the Irish and Italian characters is the meat of Greco's tale.
The most important thing for a man was to have a job. In early days families were without any social net. So, you will starve and your family will if you don't work and workers with jobs didn't invite competition.
The times were worse for Italian and Irish orphans, tots to teens. The children of whores lived on the streets with no one to help them nor had they any memory of family or of gifts, of schools or parental love. The little girls worked the streets whenever they could; they too had the daily problem of scuffing up food somewhere.
Old whores whine then die.
Police and politicians pocket bribes and look the other way. There are few social institutions outside the church and care about the fate of motherless children is left to god.

Abramo's gift was a whimsical buy for me. I thank a friend who recommended it. When the beauty of what I was reading hit me between the eyes and an hour rolled on by without my notice I knew I had to try a review.
This novel should be read. It should be kept on the shelf and loaned to friends.

Abramo's Gift is a gift for everybody.
The mandate to take from the book: "Choose love."