Bound by Blood

This debut novel, a pseudonymous collaboration by a team of Italian-American cousins, mixes unpleasant stereotypes with powerfully authentic domestic scenes of Italian immigrants and their descendants. Progressing from the 1930s through the early '50s, the story follows two daughters from a desperately poor family. Neither sister will acquiesce to the traditional but stultifying demands for obedience and submission as issued by their father, who hopes to protect them from the corrupting influences of the New World. Instead, each seeks to realize her own version of the American Dream, nearly losing her way among upper-class Italian immigrants whose money offers entree to American society. But the pair triumphs, one sibling becoming an opera singer and the other a financial wizard. Mafia subplots, however, are incongruous in what is for the most part a moving saga of family love. (Mar . )