cover image Valentino and the Great Italians

Valentino and the Great Italians

Anthony Valerio. Freundlich Books, $17.95 (247pp) ISBN 978-0-88191-041-4

Purporting to offer short biographies of famous Italian-Americans, the text contains minimaland trivialfacts, lost in surrealistic fantasy. Readers will have to wade through practically indecipherable, long-winded passsages to find any logical link to the approximately 20 persons named, including Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Enrico Caruso, Mario Cuomo and Lee Iacocca. Valerio's musings run to sexual recreation (mostly kinky), grotesque bodies, conversations with the Mona Lisa, invented exchanges by various people on improbable subjects, etc. It's hard to imagine any reader staying the course with this hodgepodge. (June