The Last Cannoli [Paperback]

Camille Cusumano (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1881901203 | ISBN-13: 978-1881901204 | Publication Date: November 25, 1999 | Edition: X

This is a fast-paced read in a voice that is fresh and powerful. It introduces the Donitella family, ordinary people with extraordinary tales to tell. Spanning four decades the novel opens its mouth-watering tale in the '50s when the father's ritual story-telling begins to take on the power of prayer. The Donitellas will stay with you and you'll keep thinking of them as one thinks of interesting people one has just met.

Editorial Reviews

Review

" . . . light is being shined on the beauty as well as the darkness of Italian culture in the United States." -- Fra Noi, Fred L. Gardaphe, 2000

". . . lyrical, exuberant novel about an Italian American family facing an increasingly homogenized society." -- Italian Americana, Laura A. Salsini, Summer 2003

"I Donitella . . . ha qualcosa di eccezionale, di straordinario: la capacita, appunto, di raccontare e raccontarsi." -- America Oggi, May 14, 2000

"The Donitellas will stay with you as interesting people one has just met." -- Arba Sicula, 2000

"This book attests to the power of storytelling to hold life together through all its diasporas." -- Cover blurb, supplied by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 2000

From the Publisher

Writing in the New York Times Book Review in 1993, Gay Talese lamented the lack of "Italian-American Arthur Millers and Saul Bellows, James Baldwins and Toni Morrisons, Mary McCarthys and Mary Gordons, writing about their experiences." The Last Cannoli begins to fill that gap.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 238 pages
• Publisher: Legas Publishing; X edition (November 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1881901203
• ISBN-13: 978-1881901204
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,212,015 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in New Jersey, in a big Sicilian family. I moved to San Francisco in 1973. I wanted to be a travel writer. Because of my love of food, I became a food writer first. Then a travel writer. I've lived abroad twice--in France, in 1976, where I did some graduate work. And most recently, I spent the last year and a half in Buenos Aires, a place I never expected to like so much---but tango took hold of me, and there I found myself, dancing away. The book contract came after I was there six months and realized I had a story to tell.And so I did, in Tango, an Argentine Love Story.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Last Canoli is first rate, July 16, 2000

By 

Gary Erickson (Compton, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Cannoli (Paperback)

The Last Canoli is a delightful, and at times sorrowful, look at a family caught between the glories of the "old country" and the promise of prosperity in America. The story is told through the eyes of different family members. Each of the Donitellas tells the family saga from the perpective age, gender and family placement. Each perspective is fresh yet all are part of the whole, like facets on a diamond. The characters and their situations are believeable. As I read The Last Canoli I felt I was part of the Donitella family. Now that the book is finished I feel I have left old friends behind. The Last Canoli is a wonderful, warm and rich book.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Must Buy This Book !!!, April 13, 2001

By 

Peter W Callo (Barnegat, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Cannoli (Paperback)

My only complaint is it was only 238 pages . I belive Cusumano could entertain me for months . A must for a t.v. mini series or a movie. To compare this would be injust.The writer is in a class alone,excellent.I can,t say enough. Would love to know more about the author.Date of next book please.I'm a buyer.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MANNAGGIA!!!, March 26, 2001

By 

Gerald J. Ross "jerberoni" (Monroeville, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Cannoli (Paperback)

Madonna mi'! I am adopting this book and all its tales and all its characters for my own. What a journey! What a TRIP and what a joy! Camille Cusumano uses eleven voices to tell the tale of a Sicilian/American family which spans four generations. Each is separate yet each is essential, just as every patch of a crazy quilt adds to the beauty and intricacy of the whole. She peppers each page with half-remembered expressions and she intertwines the inner-workings of kids witht he secret mysteries of adults in a time when even the youngest knew the meaning (and sanctity) of "family business." Throw in some mythical fantasy and the diverting tales the patriarch tells become a creation story of a beautiful, beloved island. Part travelogue, part autobiography of self-discovery, part diary of a woman in a repressed society, this book is amazing. It makes me regret that my role in the story would have been one of one of the younger memebers of the second generation. (*I don't think this is auto-biographical, it just reads that way!)

Did every family have a cumpare who only owned nut crackers shaped like women's legs or an uncle stricken with wanderlust? Did every neighborhood have a story where a child's ankle was caught in the spokes of a bicycle and did every home have a door that had been kicked in? A tale of a grandmother who worked a cure where doctors had failed? My family shares some of the Donitella passion, dialect,and hints of witchery, despite the fact we are Neapolitani and Calabresi and I regret the complete Americanization of my family, much as I regret the homogeneity and generification of society in general. This book clearly brings back all the good things about my family I either lost, set aside or never quite had.Oddly, it retains bad things too, like the stone-headed irrationality common to Italian men, but because of all the tale-tellers, these are small parts of a whole and gregarious generosity wins out. I am speaking, of course, of the head of the family, Vincent Donitella, who ruled with an iron fist. At one point, he declares,"..You are my wife and you are never to say a word against me or what I think." Later, "...I knew she loved me even if I was a bastard at times." The man who often took his sons 'to the wall' for a beating (and who then cried in private regret) admonishes his daughter for spanking her son, yet states (only in Italian) that it is a FATHER'S place to discipline his children! He softens at the end and tends to cry openly and often, beaten by a country that once held so much promise, yet proved too big for a man to adequately protect his family,

The wife, Magdalene and her youngest child are the mild, yet thundering soul of the book! While the other Donitellas are frenetic, scattering across the country, body surfing in waves, lighting the baby's mattres on fire, cruising in convertibles, skipping down the coast of the mother land, banging on a piano, playing with a band, hoarding secrets while fingering a rosary, dancing to 45's while ironing all night, and causing explosions in the basement, these two are mortar. They elicit tears of pain and joy. Magdalena has a quote I appluad. "...Vincent called me his Madonna like it was a blessing, not a curse...He put me on a pedestal. But after a while I wanted to get down." About Carmela, the youngest, the one named "for a woman of unsurpassed vision," Magdalene says, "I could see she was angry and wanted to cry. But I watched my youngest hold back her tears..Already, my baby knew when to keep a bella figura." This is a tale of balance:old world respect with American sensibility, duty with desire. It is the tale of honored vows, plentiful food and an ancient curse. Most satisfying, most touching and with deepest insight, it is a search for pride and place, a quest for happiness and the last laugh! Silent bells peel as the last page turns! Mannaggia!