Product Description

Against a backdrop of Immigration, Prohibition, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and the new millennium, the Verbicaro family make their way from Southern Italy to San Francisco to the Yucatan, finding ways to reinvent themselves as each of them brushes up against some aspect of the divine, or the profane. The family matriarch, Rosari, is a little girl whose family flees Italy because her prodigality is exploited by illiterate kidnappers. When she and her father reach San Francisco, she meets the man she ll marry, a handsome, fiercely strong peasant named Giuseppe Verbicaro. Rosari and Giuseppe s oldest son, Narciso, a handsome and dim-witted dandy, barely evades disaster by his simple-minded innocence and luck. His passionate brother Ludovico, a talented third-baseman in the old San Francisco minor leagues, falls prey to the illicit dreams of a wise guy from the Gambino family. Their youngest brother, Joe, a brilliant child and shrewd businessman, is ashamed of his ethnicity and, in particular, his father, in part because Giuseppe, wandering North Beach, believes that God directs him to marry a teenage, pregnant Mexican prostitute named Maria. Further senility, faith, or vermouth convinces the old man that Maria s child, Jesus, is the product of an immaculate conception. The event is both a family disgrace and a bizarre blessing. The child s life and death have a profound effect on Giuseppe s progeny, particularly Joe s children: Penelope, who flees the country following involvement in deadly anti-Vietnam War activities, and her brothers Paulie and Angelo, who are inspired by the young Jesus to embark upon a quest of several thousand miles to heal old wounds and recover the family s lost, but most-prized spiritual treasures.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1626719 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

From Booklist
It’s rare to find a multigenerational saga in under 300 pages, but this brief novel covers five generations of an Italian family as they move from Italy to San Francisco. The story starts with Rosari and her father fleeing Italy after she accidentally commits a crime. The course of her family is forever altered when Rosari’s husband illegally marries a second wife, a pregnant prostitute. The story of Jesus, the prostitute’s son, intersects at odd moments with Rosari’s family. Much like the original Jesus, the boy stands for different things to different people. The lyrically written story is engaging, but its brevity is its weak point. Because each character is given such little space, the reader just begins to fall for a character when the story switches course. A moving appetizer that leaves one wanting the full meal. --Marta Segal Block

Review
At the dawn of the 1900s, in Naples, precocious 11-year-old Rosari is sweet-talked into writing a ransom note for an illiterate gangster. That small moment sets in motion a chain of events that alters the course of her life. Forced to flee Italy, her family ends up in San Francisco, where Rosari meets Giuseppe Verbicaro, a ferociously determined laborer who will eventually become her husband. Their story, and the stories of their children and grandchildren make up Corvallis writer John Addiego's sprawling first novel, The Islands of Divine Music. Unfolding across the panorama of 20th-century America, the novel has the intimate feel of a short-story collection. Each chapter zeroes in on a family member, usually one who has arrived at a crossroad in life. These poignantly drawn character studies reveal the essence of each son or daughter. There's sharp-dressed Narciso, Guiseppe and Rosari's first son, who loves cars and women -- all of whom are so besotted by him they rarely notice he's slow-witted. Nicknamed Lucky Pants, he's the embodiment of the fool who is smiled on by God. There's Maria, a young Latina hooker who Giuseppe takes as a second wife (without bothering to divorce his first one) and her son Jesus, who end up living a tragic and hardscrabble lives as migrant farmworkers and who resurface in the lives of the Verbicaro family in surprising ways. And there's Paulie, whose dreams of baseball glory grow dim when he becomes nearsighted. Adrift, he ends up as a soldier in Vietnam and comes back as one of the many lost souls who seemingly left an essential part of themselves behind in that country. They're all searching for clues to their identity, and while the family members may wander in and out of each other's stories, in the end, each character faces his or her own fate and future alone. An Italian American family novel like this could feature characters straight out of central casting, but Addiego's lyrical prose and eye for detail bring Rosari's family to life in a way that feels rich and multidimensional. Reflecting the significant events and social movements of the past century through the lives of the Verbicaros adds yet another layer to this satisfying saga. --The Oregonian - Jeff Baker

About the Author
John Addiego has published numerous stories and poems in literary journals and was a poetry editor at the Northwest Review. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, he now lives with his wife, Ellen and daughter, Emily, in Corvallis, Oregon, where he teaches students with special needs. This is his first novel.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful writing but story got sidetracked in the middle
Lazaro and Eleonora Cara immigrated from Italy to New York with their daughter Rosari. Eleonora battled mental illness and when she was found dead, Lazaro and Rosari decided it was time to start over, so they moved to San Francisco. There, Rosari married Guiseppe Verbicaro and they had 6 children. Guiseppe worked hard and they led a fairly normal life. When Guiseppe was 79, he left Rosari for a young, pregnant prostitute. Her son, Jesús, would change this family forever.

The Islands of Divine Music by John Addiego is more like a series of short stories (about different members of the family) than a novel, and this concept didn't really work well for me. While Addiego's writing is beautiful, I found parts of the book rambling and redundant and there were so many characters I found myself wondering who I was reading about at times. The beginning and the end of the book meshed well for me but a lot of the middle just seemed unnecessary.

atmosphere, and a ton of heart
. . . a great debut, with loads of wit, atmosphere, and a ton of heart . . . think middlesex with italians in san francisco . . . it's really pretty impressive how much ground addiego covers in these linked stories, and how fluidly he covers it-- from calabria to the s.f., from prohibition to the dawn of the new millennium . . . another great offering from an indie press . . .

Addiego's first novel is a poetic trip around the world, with a dash of magical realism.
Whenever a book starts with the diagram of a family tree, you know you're in for a lot of characters. Instead of trying to figure out how everyone connects, it's best to dive into the charm of The Islands of Divine Music.

This isn't a jaunt into tropical magical realism, like the title suggests, but it does borrow from it and it lands there at the end. We travel with the Verbicaro family through cholera epidemics in Southern Italy, the big earthquake in San Francisco, Cold War paranoia, after-effects of the Vietnam War, Native American protests at Alcatraz, migratory farm worker life in the Western United States, and end with religious fervor in Mexico. Somehow, this works seamlessly in author John Addiego's capable hands.

Corvallis, Ore., resident Addiego is the author of numerous stories and poems, and is the former poetry editor at the Northwest Review. The Islands of Divine Music is his first novel. It is one of those books you have to read to experience the nuanced details, the deft language, and the intriguing characters. Addiego's poetry background is felt in every page. Fortunately, he also has a novelist's knowledge of his characters. Even though The Islands of Divine Music is only 241 pages, it's a large story, but the scope of its characters is intimate.

We start in Southern Italy with the matriarch, Rosari, as a child. Her father moves their family from their cholera-ridden village in Calabria to live in Naples. Rosari can read and write at a time when only one out of ten people in Naples is literate. A local criminal pays her to write a letter for him and his associate. She agrees because she has a crush on the handsome criminal and doesn't understand that she is writing a kidnapping letter.

Once I read the letter, I knew I was in for an entertaining story:

Esteemed Sir, Please excuse this intrusion into your private affairs. Financial difficulties, as well as recent illnesses in my family, have forced me into the position in which I find myself. My associate and I must come to your hotel this afternoon and kidnap you. Be entirely assured that no harm will come to you, and that your freedom will be immediately reinstated once a ransom of five thousand lire, or the equivalent in your British pounds, has been transferred to you by wire from your most highly esteemed family in Great Britain. It is my greatest hope that, once I have received this money, you will continue your travels in the sunny South. Perhaps you will see the ruins at Pompeii? Of course, that is your affair, not mine. I only wish you the least inconvenience during this kidnap, as well as many happy returns to our beautiful city.

The British man finds the kidnapping to be a lark, but his father gives the police twice the ransom to hunt down the criminals. They are arrested in a bar where they are playing pinochle and sharing chianti with their victim. While the criminals await hanging in the town square, the police search for the third accomplice, the one who wrote the letter since the two men are illiterate. As a result, Rosari's father takes her and his wife to start anew in America.

I could have spent a little longer in Italy, but this book and family aren't meant for there. They arrive in New York, but only stay long enough to lose Rosari's mother, a woman who had a habit of disappearing anyway. Soon we land in San Francisco, where most of the novel takes place, and Rosari marries Giuseppe, a man twice her age. For him, "printed words were like ants on a tablecloth." He is an unusually strong man and talks with God, who shows him through the Great Earthquake of 1906 how to make a living in America: clearing rubble. His sons later create a family business of building, instead of wrecking like their father. Rosari and Giuseppe's children and grandchildren are granted different chapters to relate aspects of their lives, and each is engrossing in its own way.

One of my favorite interactions is between Giuseppe and his about-to-be second wife. Addiego introduces the moment well: "When Giuseppe was seventy-nine years old, he decided to marry Maria Guadalupe Diego, a seventeen-year-old prostitute." Standing on the steps of a church overlooking Washington Square, "he got the notion that God wanted him to remarry...And even though Giuseppe was currently married, God told him to do it again." Maria doesn't tell Giuseppe she is pregnant, and even though he is physically unable to have sex, Giuseppe takes the birth of Jesús as a miracle and believes Maria is a virgin. After Giuseppe's death, Maria and Jesús flee dangerous men and work on migrant farms across the western United States. Their stories intermix with the Verbicaro clan's. Jesús comes in and out of the story and adds a dab of magical realism. The religious overtones of Mary and Jesús are revisited towards the end of the book with the mystery of Jesús bringing family members back together in a satisfying way.

Joe is Rosari's youngest child, and his children end the book. Among them are an underage son who requests to be sent to Vietnam and comes back addicted to heroin, a daughter who joins the anti-war movement and flees after a protest takes an unexpected turn, a Down's Syndrome daughter who is part of a funny and depressing scene with a mean Santa, a lesbian daughter who visits Italy and Rosari's village on her own quest, and another son who becomes, not surprisingly, a writer.

There is real heart in The Islands of Divine Music, and a sense of how lives brush up against one another, especially in a large family. We end in Mexico, on an island called Isla Mujeres, the Island of Women, and enjoy a nice surprise that makes the experience come full circle. Just like in our lives, there are many stories on the margins that are left untold, and add to a larger felt experience. There will be a character or two that you wish you could have spent more time with, and maybe some you're not as interested in, but you won't regret spending your time with the Verbicaro family and losing yourself in The Islands of Divine Music.
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