by Vincent Panella | Sep 24, 2017 | The First Glass
DEMOLITION Primo Levi’s Moments of Reprieve is a story collection based on his one-year stay in Auschwitz. The stories follow his other writings about the experience, and for those those who don’t know, Levi was an Italian Jew and trained chemist. In 1943...
by Vincent Panella | Aug 24, 2017 | The First Glass
HELL AND BACK In A Playboy’s Life, Anthony Valerio tells the story of an ordinary man who, almost without effort, finds himself in an extraordinary situation. This lively and skillfully written biography takes as its subject John Aimola, a son of Italian immigrants...
by Vincent Panella | Jul 24, 2017 | The First Glass
The house still stands, wrecked, silent, blackened and charred. Once the flames were extinguished an excavator ripped off part of the roof and flattened walls on the second floor to expose enough of the house so that the last ember could be put out. Now the second...
by Vincent Panella | May 24, 2017 | The First Glass
You grow up with prejudice, but that doesn’t mean you practice it. My Queens neighborhood was predominantly Irish and Jewish with an overlay of Italians. On Wednesday afternoon school was let out for religious instructions. The Jewish kids went to...
by Vincent Panella | Apr 24, 2017 | The First Glass
My grandma believed that birds were the souls of the dead. She would throw out bread soaked in water for the sparrows, grackles and stray pigeons from the nearby coops. She also believed in olive oil as a universal cure and that certain people possessed...
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