Works"A World Made New" (Chapter I of Only Sons)
"A World Made New," the first chapter of a novel, Only Sons, recounts the illegal immigration of a Southern Italian man into New York, his settlement in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania, and the founding of his family business, Maresciallo's Quarry, as a supplier of stone and cement to builders throughout the United States. The rest of the novel, about his son, grandson, and great grandson, charts the family's development from immigant status to assimilated, educated, American citizen. Lies to Live By (short stories)
Lies to Live By tells complex, frightening truths about people living from the 1940s through Vietnam to the present. The writing shows appreciation for ordinary people in difficult situations, at the same time providing sparkling lucidity and page-turning pace about their problems. These are beautiful, emotionally intriguing stories. Short Time (a novella)
"What a pleasure to read this little novel by Fred Misurella! In it I recognize so much that I admire: sensitivity, a heart open to ordinary people who are vulnerable and weak. Weak before chance occurrences that give their own meaning and direction to events we (vainly) think we master." --Milan Kunderra, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being Understanding Milan Kundera:
Public Events, Private Affairs This is must reading for any student of Milan Kundera's works and the history and philosophy behind them. It contains comments and a brief essay by Kundera himself. "A Clear Eye on Life: Renaissance Style in Primo Levi's Writing"
One in a collection about Primo Levi, this essay places the Italian author's work, including his memoir Survival in Auschwitz, in the Renaissance tradition of Dante, Boccaccio, and Galileo, arguing that his clear, dispassionate, even humorous treatment of concentration camp horrors stems from the Italian Renaissance tradition of "rigorous observation and rational observation" to wrench goodness and spirit out of awful human experiences. |
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