In yesterday’s post on Pietro Di Donato‘s Christ in Concrete, I had noted how Annunziata and Paul’s session with the medium, the Cripple, could perhaps be viewed as an affirmation of the power of the life-sustaining myth. There is a hint of irony in that suggestion, because among the central messages of Di Donato’s impassionedContinue reading “Loss of Faith, the Jewish Atheist, and Working Class Rebellion in ‘Christ in Concrete’”
Tag Archives: Italian-American literature
Talking to the Dead in Di Donato’s ‘Christ in Concrete’
In Pietro Di Donato‘s Christ in Concrete, twelve-year old Paul and his recently widowed mother Annunziata go to meet a medium called The Cripple; she will help them speak with his father and her husband. After waiting for four hours, they are granted an audience. The Cripple is ‘short’, has a ‘positive voice’, a ‘wide neck’,Continue reading “Talking to the Dead in Di Donato’s ‘Christ in Concrete’”
No Matter Where You Go, There’s Home: Robert Viscusi’s Astoria
This morning, while out for a errand-laden walk–visiting the pediatrician’s office, shopping, and getting an influenza vaccine shot–in this bizarrely gorgeous East Coast January weather, I ran into my friend and Brooklyn College colleague, the poet Robert Viscusi, with whom I work at the Wolfe Institute for the Humanities. I admire Bob for his erudition, wit,Continue reading “No Matter Where You Go, There’s Home: Robert Viscusi’s Astoria”
Samir Chopra 