Customer Reviews

The Last Cannoli

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

The storytelling of the father, Vincenzo, is first-rate, but the surrounding narrative is laboured. The story is gripping for those of Sicilian descent, but I fear that others may not see through the uneven writing to get see the characters shine.

If the entire book was as inspiring and beautiful as the last
couple of chapters, it would be an all time favorite for me.
I was kind of disappointed and confused by all the kids, all the
names, nicknames, and various unclear first person narratives.
As for its historical accuracy and some of the character development, it was quite good in these areas.

...I couldn't get to the last pages. Although I loved the family life and all the children, I couldn't stand the child-abusive father.

This character turned my blood cold. Not entertained by his savagery while beating his sons, I was horrified instead, for it seemed to go on and on.

No amount of Italian pride or flowery "stories" or even generosity will ever save this monster's image. Nothing experienced in his own past would ever cause enough pity or understanding in me to continue reading.

I loved the rest of the book; especially liking each member's own story by itself. I loved the food, the music and the understanding the author has of children growing up and a mother's life.

It was the hideous "father" who cried after he brutalized his children ( especially two happy boys who came home late for supper on a summer night) that I couldn't contend with.

I guess it's my lack of understanding that robs me of enjoying the rest of this book which is otherwise a very good read, but the violence and false pride of the father- character was so offensive, I put the book in the trash about halfway through.

If you cringe as I do about child abuse, stay away from this one.