Vincent Panella
Vincent Panella grew up in Queens and lives in Marlboro, Vermont. Three of his published books are the memoir The Other Side, the novel Cutter’s Island, and a short story collection called Lost Hearts.
Sicilian Dreams, a novel of immigration set in 1907, was published by Bordighera Press in the fall of 2020.
Vincent is available for readings and online events relating to Sicilian Dreams and his other work. See his contact page for more information.
Books
The Other Side: Growing up Italian in America
The Other Side is Vincent Panella’s personal journey, from rejection of his family to a realization that he cannot escape or deny his origins.
Lost Hearts
The twenty-three stories in Lost Hearts comprise a rich and candid account of growing up and growing old in Sicily and America.
Cutter’s Island
This is a revenge tale based on a little known event in the life of Julius Caesar. When he was twenty five, Caesar was captured by pirates and held on an island for forty days. Cutter’s Island is the story of Caesar’s liberation and revenge
Sicilian Dreams
Santo Regina immigrates after taking part in a failed political movement incited by Vito Cascio Ferro, a figure historians describe as rabble rouser and member of The Black Hand. Once in America Santo becomes entangled with Cascio Ferro and his arch rival, Detective Joseph Petrosino of New York’s famous Italian Squad.
Cutter's Island is a perfect flawless gem, without a false not anywhere. In prose as spare of Caesar's own, Mr. Panella makes surfaces reflect surfaces, with the sense of bottomless depths beneath. He packs more between the lines, and between chapters, than most writers deliver in books and books.
– Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire
Praise for Cutter’s Island
Periodic
The First Glass
Sleeping With Herodotus
There's a Hemingway story called Now I Lay Me in which he fears sleeping at night ever since he was struck by a mortar during World War I – ‘blown up’ as he puts it. To fall asleep in darkness would cause his soul “to fly out of his body,’ that is, he...
Today’s Weather
She was sitting in front of the TV, remote in hand, water, books, and pills on the side table. She lowered the sound when he came in and sat, his back hurting from the day's work.I don't think I'll be able to get up.You poor thing.Bent over a sink for the...
Contact Vincent
vincentpanella9@gmail.com