Product DescriptionIn his tantalizing debut novel Paradise Salvage--at once a taut thriller and a lyrical coming-of-age story--John Fusco marvelously traces the unforgettable trajectory of twelve-year-old Nunzio Paradiso's last summer of innocence. To Kill a Mockingbird depicted such a summer--the last unfettered, wondrous season of youth. Each new wreck towed into Paradise Salvage--where the ferocious crusher presides with its power to reduce luxury automobiles into coffin-shaped heaps of twisted metal--is a desultory gift from Fortune, a random opportunity for discovery. Sometimes it's a handful of loose change under the upholstery or an old copy of Vue magazine with a Bettie Page centerfold under the front seat, but on a hot summer day in 1979, in the trunk of an abandoned Pontiac Bonneville, Nunzio uncovers a secret that will change his life. A story of innocence lost and justice found, of ambition frustrated and dreams realized, and the difference between generations of a family struggling to reconcile the traditions of the past with the demand of the present, Paradise Salvage glows with heart and marks the debut of a gifted storyteller.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - A book that goes on and on.
`Paradise Salvage' is both a great coming of age story and a long winded slow moving book that always seems to be on the verge of breaking out of its malaise but rarely does. The story starts out with Nunzio Paradisco, a young kid and son of a junk yard owner finding a dead or dying body in the back of a car. The next couple of hundred pages deal with Nunzio trying to get his family to believe he saw anything other than a brood of dead puppies. Eventually Nunzio, his older brother, and a crippled ... Read More
Rating: - From Same City in Connecticut
I am from the same city in CT that John Fusco grew up. I could not put this book down. I clearly remember the political problems that the author refers to. Fusco's description of the city and of his neighborhood is so colorful and accurate that I always knew exactly where he was referring to even when names were changed. My in-laws are "1st generation" Italians living in the neighborhood that Fusco describes in his book as his own and the description of the family dynamics is hysterical and accurate. ... Read More
Rating: - Rights, Lefts and Rites of Passage thru the Junk Yard
A screen player writer, the author has given us a book that cries out to be a movie and apparently is going to be. It has an innocence and reminded me so much of "Stand By Me" Even the chimpanzee who appears charmed me and I can hardly wait to see who is cast in this tour de force for actors. Great little book!
Rating: - Fantastic story about growing up in two cultures
I loved the book. Fusco tells a story of an Italian-American family outside New York, but it is not for those of Italian ascent only. It is a warm story about growing up in two cultures, being third generation, which should appeal to those from Mayflower on and immigrants alike.
Nunzio, the 12 year old I of the book, who cares about his big brother and dad to the point where his stomach aches, who is thinking, loving, scared of crimes, awakening sexually, superstitious, and unforgettable.
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Rating: - AN AMERICAN ITALO CALVINO!
What are they drinking in Avon, CT?? This book is the first American novel I have read that draws on the magic realism of Italo Calvino and jumps off the page into the room! There are times when I feel that the author is actually paying homage to Calvino--and at times Baricco--when he takes characters so far into sixth gear that a reader with no familiarity of opera buffa or magic-realism might cry "stereotype". To me, this is exciting terrain.
I just saw the author do a reading in Boston ... Read More
- A book that goes on and on.
- From Same City in Connecticut
