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Paperback Details
  • 05/2024
  • 978-1-963844-04-7
  • 264 pages
  • $17.99
LOUIS TRUBIANO
Author
What Once Was Promised

Adult; General Fiction (including literary and historical); (Market)

What Once Was Promised combines fact and fiction in telling the story of young Domenic Bassini’s journey from a sixteen-year-old Italian immigrant arriving in Boston in 1914 through 50 turbulent years of triumphs and tragedy. Try as he might to avoid the conflicting forces battling for power in his neighborhood and his city, he is drawn into encounters with the fledging Biston Mafia, the powerful Irish political machine, the Italian anarchists and corrupt police. \tHis crossing to America gives rise to brief onboard affair with Francesca Dragatto, the beautiful young wife of a man with connections to the Sicilian Mafia and ends with him helping young orphan stowaway Ernesto Lentini sneak into Boston. He and Ernesto share a room in the home of Giuseppi Rossario, a friend of Domenic’s family, with their young son Joseph, in Boston’s Italian North End. Domenic becomes like a big brother to the other two boys who become lifelong friends. \tCircumstance lead the three boys down different paths, but the bond remains. The rebellious Ernesto enters a life of crime, raising though the ranks of the local Mafia. Joseph enter politics and becomes a groundbreaking Italian presence on the City Council. Domenic seeks a simple life as a shipyard worker, but as the years and decades pass, youthful rivalries and fateful decisions lead to unpredictable and sometimes unsavory outcomes. \tConflict with the powerful O’Riley family form early and carry repercussions for decades. The three lives are touched by famous Bostonians including Mayor James Michael Curley, Mafia boss Joseph Lombardo, Joseph Kennedy, and Governor Leverett Saltonstall, and influenced by real events including, the 1918 flue epidemic, 1919 molasses flood and the 1919 police strike. \tBut when tragedy strikes, the three men and Francesca come together again and to seek justice, taking on the powerful societal forces they have fought all their lives to get to the truth. In the end, a mystery is solved and a second chance to be a family again is born.
Plot/Idea: 8 out of 10
Originality: 7 out of 10
Prose: 7 out of 10
Character/Execution: 7 out of 10
Overall: 7.25 out of 10

Assessment:

Plot/Idea: What Once Was Promised is a sprawling novel about a group of Italian immigrants to the U.S. who struggle to make a life for themselves and avoid the worst of the Italian mafia in Boston.

Prose: Trubiano's prose is polished and evocative as it details the central character's journey beginning with his departure from Italy to his life in America. The author capably establishes the historical era and conveys the complexities of the immigrant experience, though some passages are weighed down by longwinded description. 

Originality: Trubiano writes convincingly about the rise of immigrant communities in Boston. Though the novel has familiar beats relating to universal challenges of finding one's footing in a new nation, the work's focus on the Italian mafia contributes intrigue and tension.

Character/Execution: What Once Was Promised has a wide cast of characters and establishes the main players effectively. While Trubiano creates a realistic picture of immigrant life in mid 20th century Boston, lengthy passages of exposition can sometimes result in a drier reading experience than the circumstances deserve.

Date Submitted: May 23, 2024

Reviews
Sixteen-year-old Domenic Bassini, an immigrant headed to America from Italy in 1914, knows the value of community. He comes from a small, tight-knit village, where, in his father’s wise words, “other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.” That wisdom nourishes Domenic as he makes a life for himself in America, surrounded by colorful characters and political rivalries in a country that runs on the backs of its immigrants but too often cares little for their welfare. As he sets down new roots—and treads the dangerous ground of Boston’s North End in the early 20th century—Domenic learns just how far that sense of belonging will take him.

Trubiano fills this riveting debut with a wealth of history and deeply appealing characters, all set against the backdrop of the American dream—an elusive notion that taunts Domenic and his fellow Italian immigrants, while they try to survive in the face of treacherous beginnings. Domenic is a solid, admirable character, who devotes himself to work and family—both biological and found. The connections he makes on the passage to America stick with him in unexpected ways, notably young stowaway Ermino Lentini and the beautiful, but married, Francesca Dragatto—one a future mafioso and the other Domenic’s first love. Those relationships come full circle for Domenic in ways he could never have guessed as a young, hopeful immigrant.

Rich with cultural insight, Trubiano’s novel takes on the deadly rivalry between different immigrant groups in early America, particularly the Irish and the Italians, and spins an unforgettable tapestry of community, survival, and political intrigue—in an America where corruption is rampant and it’s literally every man for himself. Domenic’s spirit—and respect for the new life he’s carved—shines brightly throughout, despite his heartbreaking experiences, making this a true homage to the steely resolve of America’s first immigrants.

Takeaway: Riveting story of immigration and Boston’s North End in the early 20th century.

Comparable Titles: Adriana Trigiani’s The Shoemaker’s Wife, Akhil Sharma’s Family Life.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

Formats
Paperback Details
  • 05/2024
  • 978-1-963844-04-7
  • 264 pages
  • $17.99
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