Elizabeth Street

This is an absolute gem of a book, published by Amazon Encore who find books that have been overlooked and promote them. I was lucky enough to receive a copy as part of the Amazon Vine programme, and I would encourage anybody, whether part of Vine or not, to read it.

It's the story of Giovanna Costa, who marries her childhood sweetheart in Scilla, Italy. He goes to America to try to earn money before coming back to her, but instead Giovanna finds herself following him to New York after tragedy strikes. Against the odds, she makes a life for herself in New York on the Elizabeth Street of the title, but her family becomes a target for the Black Hand protection mob who kidnap her four year old daughter.

Giovanna is a brilliant character. show more All the characters in the book are great, but I particularly loved Giovanna for her courage and strong will. I really like character-driven books and also slice of life stories, and this book is both of those things.

I loved following the twists and turns of Giovanna's life, and also things that happened, such as the earthquake that affected Scilla in 1908. The fact that this book is a novel based around true events (the author's great-grandmother and grandmother are Giovanna and her daughter Angelina) really appealed to me and made reading this book even more of a pleasure.

Laurie Fabiano really has produced a fantastic read with this book. It seems to be well thought of in America, but has a very small readership in the UK, and it would be great if more people were able to read and appreciate this wonderful book. show less

From the Old Country to the Land of Liberty

Laurie Fabiano’s new historical novel Elizabeth Street is a fictionalized account of the life of her Grandmother, Giovanna Costa, who crossed the Atlantic in 1902 from Calabria Italy to investigate the death of her husband Nunzio who had made the journey the previous year to find a job and earn enough money for his wife’s passage.

Sailing into New York harbor beneath Lady Liberty’s torch, Giovanna soon steps on American shores and is met by her brother-in-law Lorenzo, who will take her to live with his family. Giovanna is then told the shocking and brutal details of how Nunzio was killed on the job at the local Gas company, and together her and Lorenzo hire a lawyer to sue the company for show more her husbands horrifying death due to their negligence.

As Giovanna tries to settle in and learns to navigate the filthy streets of the Italian quarter of New York, struggles with the language barrier, the legal system, and grieves over her loss, she slowly builds a life for herself and remarries another Calabrian who is a produce merchant. Both widows start anew building a family and grocery business, but as life has a tendency to never give people a break in life, troubles and tragedy hit Giovanna hard when the Black Hand, the old name for the Mafia, reeks havoc in their lives by bombing their store and kidnapping their baby girl. What Giovanna does to overcome the threat of extortion, murder, and the concept that she may never see her baby Angelina again, will shock and astound readers as they silently read and cheer her bravery and determination on as she turns the table around and gives the Black Hand a good dose of their own medicine as she learns to play hardball and the hunted becomes the hunter.

The author’s retelling of her grandmother’s life is a gripping and fascinating up-close-and-personal view into the world of New York’s turn-of-the-century immigrant life. She offers the reader an honest and realistic picture depicting a life of total hardship, poverty, and chaos amidst the Italian people trying hard to make a new life. This was at a time when the early Mafia gangs were growing and raking in the dough through extortion and terrorizing innocent people. Fabiano’s writing is amazingly poignant and emotional, you will feel for Giovanna and her family as their new life brings only pain, and will immediately be pulled into her story that is so evocative of the time and place you will not be able to put the book down until you finish it.

As an Italian-American with Calabrian roots from my father’s parents who came over from Italy in the mid 1800’s, Elizabeth Street helped me greatly to understand the early immigrant culture and life that my own grandparents would have experienced. Thank you Laurie Fabiano for a sensational book! I truly loved this story and believe all Italian Americans today would too. show less

I thought this an interesting read about the Italian immigrant experience at the turn of the 20th century--even more so once I realized it is based on the author's personal family history. As her great grandparent’ small village in Italy becomes impoverished, they choose to emigrate to NYC. Fabiano writes a compelling tale of the events leading up to the decision to come to America, the voyage across the ocean, the struggle to find employment in the face of prejudice against Italian immigrants, and then their suffering from extortion by "The Black Hand" (early Mafioso). I was particularly taken by the details of the entry via Ellis Island as well as the devastation of the Messina Earthquake of 1909. The book was a bit choppy because show more of shifts from the early 20th century storyline to modern day at times, but not enough to detract from the dominant storyline. show less

"Elizabeth Street" follows Giovanna, a young Italian woman from Calabria, as she embarks on her immigrant experience in America. Giovanna comes to America expecting to not find much of a life outside of her beloved region of Italy, but a series of events--from finding work, a husband, and a devastating earthquake in her homeland--tie her to her new country. A run in the mob threatens her happiness and questions whether the family will prevail.

"Elizabeth Street" is a rich novel, full of accurate historical detail. As I was reading this novel I kept remembering my visit to the Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side of NYC, and felt like the detail of the novel along with that experience really made this novel come to life for me. The show more story moves effortlessly between the streets of NYC and Italy, and it is beautiful throughout. I was a little dissapointed by the end of the novel, but I didn't let it ruin this wonderful story for me. show less

Excellent
A novel that gives you a personal look of Italian immigrants trying to make a fresh start in turn of the twentieth century New York. The struggles with the black hand thugs. Characters brought to life and your heart.

Per essere una pubblicazione Amazon devo dire che mi è piaciuto. Ha dei difetti. Per esempio, ha un ritmo abbastanza incostante. Alcuni aspetti della protagonista sono piuttosto contraddittori (a volte pare una donna moderna, altre volte dimostra invece di vivere nel suo tempo). L'inizio è piuttosto lento. Alcuni atteggiamenti familiari denunciano alcune pecche ancor oggi tipiche di certi italiani (e non riesco a giustificarli facilmente nemmeno ricorrendo al contesto storico). Però piano piano prende, acquista un suo movimento, racconta una storia che effettivamente è piuttosto documentata. Ho visto infatti a fine testo una bibliografia molto buona. Sicuramente oltre ai ricordi di famiglia c'è stata anche una ricerca ben condotta. show more Resta il dubbio su cosa sia nel testo fantasia o realtà, perché probabilmente all'interno della storia vera della famiglia ci sono dei dettagli che sono inventati (la conoscenza di Joe Petrosino è una licenza poetica o è un dato vero? Presumo la prima). Insomma, per essere un testo non di prima fascia devo dire che l'ho trovato interessante. La scrittura non è male, ma è un po' semplicistica. Per me un difetto. Ma grammaticalmente è corretta. Non mi sono invece parsi molto efficaci i salti temporali al presente.
Su un massimo di 5, se 4 è forse troppo, un tre e mezzo sarebbe forse perfetto. show less

This was a very interesting book, and I think what added to its interest is that it is based on the Author’s own family history.

Because of this the character are very real, and with that comes all the traits the human species carries with it. There are people the reader will love, and those they will hate; decisions made will either have the reader applauding or booing and getting ready to throw fruit where needed. Due to the fact that these characters are based on real people it is impossible to comment on whether the Author did a good job on their development, as to do this the reader would have to personally know those mentioned in this books pages, to be able to base their decision on. It is for this reason that I have chosen to show more not comment on development; I don’t know these people personally, and feel that to make any judgement on their development as the novel progresses would be doing them, and the Author, a disservice.

Having a family background through marriage of the Italian immigrant, I found this book very informative and learnt what is was like to be subject to meeting bureaucracy as the immigrants came through Ellis Island; having to make themselves understood in a country they hoped would provide them with a better life and, in some cases finding out that it really didn’t care. Not only does the reader find out about life in New York’s Italian community and how they survived through extortion and other tragedies that came there way, the reader also learns something of Italian history and the motivation that drove so many to weather the seas to come to the US. It is apparent from reading this book that the Author took great pains in making sure the historical details were right on the mark, as well as making sure they told the story of these immigrants with compassion and understanding; something that is so often lacking in other books on this topic.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who, like our family, is here because of immigration particularly from Italy; those who are interested in the history of New York at the turn of the 20th century, and also anyone who is looking for an engrossing and different read.


Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2014/03/13/review-elizabeth-street-a-novel-based-on-t...




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. show less