Darkness Falls [Hardcover]

John M. del Vecchio (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1998

The pressures of modern life in the suburbs at the end of the twentieth century are catching up with John Panuzio - debt, status, family, and the very town he grew up in are all creaking on the axis of change. Who exactly is John Panuzio - a.k.a. "Johnny-panni"? He is a stranded baby-boomer whose wife has just entered the workplace and suddenly has a lot to talk about and a lot less attention for him. He is the son of a proud Italian father who helped build the very suburb they live in, but who is now alone, living with his son and family, complaining and dying. He is the father of three children: a son in an overpriced college who doesn't communicate, a soccerplaying (and very argumentative) high-school son who is dating a Puerto Rican girl, and a princess of a daughter, who has no limits to her demands. He is a promotional/advertising hack working for a defense company that is relocating to Atlanta - and he hasn't been invited. Corporate mergers, downsizing, and public schools in turmoil all form the background for this novel of love, hate, violence and glory, rescue and murder.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Del Vecchio wears his heart on his sleeve in this often overwrought account of a suburban Connecticut Italian family struggling to maintain its old-country values in a fast-changing modern world. At the heart of the struggle are John Panuzio, a 50-year-old ad executive whose vision of idyllic family life is threatened by a the imminent downsizing of his job; an aging live-in father whose health problems threaten the family's emotional resources; a spouse with a high-powered publishing career who's considering an affair with a co-worker; and an athletic son trying to deal with a variety of teenage temptations in a racially troubled school system. To escape from his problems, Panuzio retreats into a series of nostalgic childhood fantasies that focus on the strength of his extended family, but he's brought back to reality when his father suffers a stroke, his wife becomes the victim of a corporate power play and the teenage son of his best friend, an African American, is murdered after a high school auto accident that also deeply affects the ad exec's boy. Panuzio takes up the dead youth's cause in the local paper, penning a series of articles in which he speaks out against racism and inequality in the community, but his company rewards his idealism with a demotion, and a final family revelation after his father dies threatens to shatter his self-image irrevocably. Del Vecchio (The 13th Valley) is a sensitive writer who raises some compelling issues, but he seems unable to resist the temptation to go for melodrama over understatement. He also allows his primary characters to indulge in a variety of rambling diatribes about values old and new, burying the subtle nuances of a decent story in waves of verbiage. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

It's ironic that a novel in which one of the central characters is a book editor should be so badly in need of one. With racial tensions mounting in suburban Connecticut and Johnny Panuzio's life going into free fall (job troubles, kid troubles, possible wife troubles, gambling debts, a deteriorating, dependent father), there's a lot going on?almost too much, and this is without the car crash, murder, and sexual escapades. Just as the reader gets interested in one strand, it goes away, perhaps to reappear, perhaps not. As Johnny considers suicide, he retreats into childhood reminiscences more annoying even than the Tolstoyan descriptions of soccer matches. Then there's the other stuff, e.g., the book editor, in response to a speech berating a Draconian school administration, shouting "Here! Here!" as if to let people know where she is, and the character who makes an adjective of the popular "f" word with "-in," "-en," and "-ing," unsure of his own diction and dialect. There is a good book in here somewhere, but Del Vecchio (Carry Me Home, Bantam, 1996) would have benifited from an Ezra Pound.?Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, NY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312192169
• ISBN-13: 978-0312192167
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,893,545 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep, enjoyable, thought-provoking, October 16, 2000

By 

Quaker Annie "reader" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Darkness Falls: An American Story (Paperback)

John Del Vecchio is best known for his Vietnam novels, written from his own experience in that war. This book, too, draws from his personal history, this time as an Italian-American, growing up in a large family in Connecticut. And like his other novels (13th Valley; For All Things Living; Carry Me Home), his characters, plot and writing is so good, you'll keep reading even if your vision of the world is quite different from the author's (note that this reviewer is a bleeding heart liberal pacifist WASP -- Del Vecchio is not)!

This story covers so much that an attempt to explain it in detail may make it sound too complicated. The writing is so good, it isn't too complicated, but it isn't a quick read.

Del Vecchio writes primarily from the view of Johnny Panuzio, a middle-aged husband and father in the process of being downsized from his job as an advertising executive. He struggles with a gambling addiction while functioning as best friend to Mitch (a black coworker), a good husband to Julia (fresh back in the workplace as an executive in a publishing company), a dedicated father to a college-aged son, and a son and daughter in high school, a patient son to Rocco, who lives with the family and is slowly losing his memories.

Add a mysterious death, a love story, corporate game-playing, and some local politics, all touched by a rich Italian-American heritage, and you have a book you won't want to put down. In addition to Johnny Panuzio's viewpoint, Del Vecchio also offers the reader a view from the murdered high school student (through publications of letters the young man had written), as well as from the views of his teen-aged son and his aging father. There are flashbacks from Johnny's childhood, as well as a running series of his own "final thoughts".

A good, thick read that will make you think long after you've put it back on the shelf.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Darkness falls is a WINNER, November 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Darkness Falls (Hardcover)

As a parent of high school age kids, I could relate closely to the adolescent and school issues this book examines. In fact, it deals with such a broad selection of family and personal issues, there's something here that will touch almost everyone. I felt that parts of the story were written about me and I believe that most readers will experience this same feeling. The events are very troubling and this book puts you on the spot, to deal with them and where we're going as a society.

Meals served up by Del Vecchio (I think this is his 4th book) are not fast food. But, when you get up from the table, you feel full, satisfied and as if you've just experienced a new cuisine. Sticking with the metaphor, the story repeats on you. The issues and choices will continue to haunt you for a long time.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Darkness Falls could have been titled "$#!^ Happens.", November 5, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Darkness Falls (Hardcover)

As a parent of high school age kids, I could relate closely to the adolescent and school issues this book examines. In fact, it deals with such a broad selection of family and personal issues, there's something here that will touch almost everyone. I felt that parts of the story were written about me and I believe that most readers will experience this same feeling. The events are very troubling and this book puts you on the spot, requiring you to deal with them and where we're going as a society.

Meals served up by Del Vecchio (I think this is his 4th book) are not fast food. But, when you get up from the table, you feel full, satisfied and as if you've just experienced a new cuisine. Sticking with the metaphor, the story repeats on you. The issues and choices will continue to haunt you for a long time.