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Christ in Concrete (Centennial Edition) (Signet classics)

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"Christ in Concrete," by Pietro di Donato, is a superb novel of the Italian-American experience. The Signet Classic edition contains a preface by Studs Terkel and a very informative introduction by Fred L. Gardaphe. Terkel notes that the book was first published in 1939, and compares it to John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath."

"Christ" tells the story of an urban, working-class Italian-American family in the early part of the 20th century. Much of the book is focused on Paul, a young man who finds work as a bricklayer.

di Donato writes with a vivid style; he attains a muscular poetry of blood and concrete as he describes the workers' "symphony of struggle." He brings to life both the specifics of Italian-American life as well as the larger multicultural world in which Paul's family lives. The book deals with Italian-American folk beliefs, tenement living, bilingualism, and a young man's sexual awakening. di Donato also writes on the theme of the common person's struggle against uncaring officialdom. He also explores the question of faith in the face of suffering.

There are many vivid scenes and characters in this novel. One account of an Italian-American feast is particularly memorable. There are also some really graphic, horrifying descriptions of workplace death and injury. I believe that this powerful novel belongs on the shelf with all those great books that sympathetically look at the oppressed and the overworked in the United States. And for another author who has written eloquently on the Italian-American experience, I recommend the fiction of John Fante.

You have seen those photos from the thirties- construction workers sitting on a girder hundreds of feet above Manhatten, lunch pail next to them, seemingly unaware that their legs are dangling over an abyss. Christ in Concrete is about those workers and that abyss.

This is one of the strangest, most original books I have ever read, a lost classic of American modernism. I cannot think of an author to compare Di Donato to- the mundane and fobidding ironies of Celine come to mind, but so do the mythic qualities of Brecht. It is sort of a reverse image of The Fountainhead- here are brilliant and passionate people literally being crushed by architechture.

Di Donato's style is loud, blunt and operatic. He rushes through cinematic images and superdramatic tragedies, almost as though he fears he is going to bore you. The events are fairly autobiographical. It's rather like meeting a charming but slightly frightening stranger who tells you thier life story: you are entranced and sympatheic, but fully unnerved.

This tale of the Italian-American experience told through the voice of a young man whose father is killed in a bizarre construction accident is overwhelming.

It is perhaps the most overlooked American classic.

Discovering that America's streets were not paved with gold is a hard reality found in nearly every immigrant story. That America was a cheat designed to exploit and destroy is a more unique construct, one which forms the thesis of this 1939 novel.

"Christ In Concrete" begins with its most memorable section, one which casts a pall over all that follows. In it, we see a man named Geremio work on a New York construction site, circa 1924. It's an unstable structure, but the cruel, drunken bossman keeps Geremio and the other Italian immigrants working under threat of dismissal. Inevitably, the structure falls, and Geremio dies horribly in a descriptive passage where author Pietro di Donato gives you all the awful details. After that, the rest of the novel follows Geremio's young son Paul, who is forced to pick up his father's trowel to feed his large and poor family.

The dissatisfaction with capitalism is presented early, in the form of the nasty bossman Mr. Murdin and some words here and there ("The full gut sees not the hungry face," one woman observes sadly). The message of savage capitalist exploitation is not ever-present, but it does undergird the narrative.

"Christ In Concrete" is even bolder as a critique on the emptiness di Donato perceived in religious faith, akin to Marx's "opium of the people." We see it early on, in the pain-wracked unheard cries to God from the dying Geremio, and even more definitively at the end, where di Donato pushes the point with savage force. In the middle, except for a scene with a spiritual medium which actually provides some welcome laughs in an otherwise dead-serious book, the atheism at the heart of "Christ In Concrete" is very much a background element, too. In fact, di Donato seems to find value in Catholicism's ability to hearten, though not materially help, otherwise hopeless people.

For me, "Christ In Concrete" was less interesting as a social or philosophical document. Its true strength, albeit a relative one, is in the presentation of the everyday lives of Paul and his family after Geremio's death. Di Donato powerfully describes such things as a tenement where residents breathe in each other's stink and find pleasure in wine and gossip. A wedding feast is described so palpably you feel yourself counting calories as you read, and a birth scene is almost as gory as Geremio's death. Di Donato was not a polished writer, but he was an enthusiastic one, with a reverence for the tiniest detail that somehow doesn't bog down the energetic narrative.

"It seemed so daring to lay brick at the edge of a wall that ran down hundreds and hundreds of feet to a toy world below, a wall that leaned and seemed about to fall away," di Donato writes about one of Paul's worksites. At times, di Donato's descriptions take a Beat-like quality, of grammatically untethered wordflows: "High severe chambers through tall heavy doors stout walls warmth quiet thick everlasting wood trim smooth crackless plaster lacquered floors..." begins the description of a rectory Paul visits for aid, in vain.

While vividly rendered, the story of "Christ In Concrete" feels much like what it was, a focused short story followed by a long, episodic narrative tacked on later, with a finale that pushes the book's tragic message to an uncomfortably high pitch. The characters are not that interesting, and tend to bewail their fate at greater-than-necessary length: "Unfair! Unfair!-Our lives-Unfair!"

On the positive side, "Christ In Concrete" captures both the brutality and beauty of the immigrant experience as fed through a Marxist prism. It's not a fun read, but you will remember it.

Ah, how to adequately describe this vividly written, tragic, humorous, sometimes-horribly-graphic, deeply poetic novel that depicts a true-life story! Perhaps my adjectives may seem to have done that already, but they hardly scratch the surface! I have never experienced anything exactly like it, and except for a little later, when I read its sequel, Three Circles of Light, I don't believe I ever will again! Although written as a made-up story, it is actually a form of memoir written about the author's father, a bricklayer in the early 19th century who, because of the dangerous and corrupt working conditions he and his co-workers are forced to endure, dies a terrible death, entombed in concrete on, of all days, Good Friday. Although the death-scenes of he and others are truly uncomfortable and unforgettable reading, this book is far from unremittingly depressing! It colorfully, humorous, sometimes ribaldly, evokes the lives of Italian immigrants in the New York City area; their loves, loyalties, laughter, traditions...the characters, so real, so hilariously, heartbreakingly human, become like your own family members as you read. It also shows how little things really do change as far as the plight of laborers is concerned. The closest thing I can think of to this book is Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, but this novel, I think, has more life, more heart to it. An absorbing read, highly recommended!

While from a literary perspective, this is no masterpiece, it nonetheless captures a unique portrait of early twentieth-century Italian immigrant life. My great-grandfather, Nicolo, worked with tile in Philadelphia around the same time of the setting in this book. Many of the stories I've heard growing up make more sense now having read di Donato's novel.

The writing is stilted at times (di Donato's attempt to make the English sound Italian), and he allows his characters to go on angst-ridden rants for far too long. But there are numerous gems in this piece. I wholeheartedly recommend it -- to Italian-Americans to learn a little more about their heritage and to all others to catch a glimpse of early Italian immigrant life in America.

This is the finest book I have ever read about Immigrants. As an Italian American it is especially rewarding. If made into a real film (not like the cheesy 1949 version)it could be a masterpiece -- it could be to Scorsese what Schindler's list is to Spielberg.

One note -- wait to read Fred Gardaphe's introduction until after you read the novel as he gives away a lot of the story.

In terms of shipping and the product itself I received it in an extremely timely manner and it was in perfect condition. Beyond that, it is an immensely beutiful work of literature. If you enjoy the artistry of the English language you will enjoy this book.

This is one of my favorite books. It's a thought-provoking and lyrical portrayal of working class issues in America. Di Donato's prose style is wonderful. This book should be much more widely read than it is.

I had the privilege of spending an afternoon at the Long Island home of Pietro Di Donato many, many years ago when a friend of mine, John Liscio,took me to visit. Mr. Di Donato's father, I was told, died when he fell into a vat of cement back in the days when there were no labor laws to protect workers. The book was shaped from this incidence. Powerful book, and an even more powerful man. Both left an indelible impression.