Gowanus crossing : a Brooklyn boyhood / Vincent Coppola.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Coppola, Vincent, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Coppola, Vincent--Childhood and youth.

Coppola, Vincent.

Italian Americans--New York (State)--New York--Biography.

Italian Americans.

Journalists--United States--Biography.

Journalists.

Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)--Biography.

Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.).

Genre:

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

x, 242 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Henry Holt and Company, 2026.

Summary:

"A veteran journalist's gritty, darkly funny memoir about growing up Italian American in 1960s Brooklyn. Mid-century Gowanus: Decades before the Whole Foods went up and the lofts were refurbished, a raucous, unruly, proudly Italian American enclave clings to the banks of the noxious canal. The Mafia and the Catholic Church-two centuries-old, rigidly hierarchical institutions defined by oppressive codes of silence-dominate the neighborhood. In Gowanus Crossing, Vincent Coppola brings the world of his childhood ferociously to life. A third generation Italian immigrant, Coppola grew up in old Gowanus, a bookish kid for whom Park Slope, to say nothing of Central Park, might as well have been the moon. His journey through and eventually out of the neighborhood is harrowing, hilarious, and populated with a cast of characters who burst off the page: a four-foot-tall wiseguy who walks a lion on a leash, a predatory priest, mobbed-up undertakers, Coppola's three wayward brothers, and a host of assorted schemers, scammers, mobsters, bookies, gamblers, and certifiable crazies. Combining Frank McCourt's gimlet eye with the exuberant menace of a Scorsese movie, Gowanus Crossing captures a lost world in all its glory"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

A battered heart

Shoot the undertaker

Fly-fishing on the Gowanus

The lonesome death of Louie the fag

The beast in the basement

Vincenzo Coppola

The persimmon tree

Golten's yard

Summer in paradise

The outsider

Eyes closed tight

Monduce

An immigrant's tale

Aliens among us

Jimmy Psycho

I'm arrested for murder

Always the rebel

My friend Ray Sharkey

Shooting Uncle Otto

Crossing Flatbush

Swimming to forever

Margie

Pots at the Bay Au Go-Go

The race

Union busting for the mob

Bruno and the dwarf

My cousin Richie

The secret

Dark rooms

Joe Galapo

Losing mom

Under a full moon.

Notes:

Map on lining papers.

ISBN:

9781250904126

1250904129

OCLC:

1533910614