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Rating: West of Rome, by John Fante
The book concludes the saga of the Molise family.
A book composed of two stories, published posthumously by Fante's wife.
In the first story, the values of the Italian immigrant's maturity in the USA are expressed, with the symbols of prosperity typical of those years.
A single-family house, the sports car, the children with their own cars, idle, seized by a musical impulse ranging from Frank Zappa to psychedelia.
The protagonist (who, like other authors of the beat generation, survives on scripts, unemployment checks, a few books) feels alien to that world.
His Italian reminiscences lead him to idealize a "RETURN", an Italian life whether in Rome or Naples, where he can relive his childhood.
The Porsche becomes his symbol of freedom, like a pants-wearing Janis Joplin, and the discovery of an Akita, baptized Stupido for his unusual behavior.
The disappearance of the dog, the distancing of the children, sees him make choices, initially for a return to origins, then for the true values of life.
A life that has value when your dog plays with a sow that has been saved from slaughter and is happy, making you, in turn, joyful for the companionship.
The second part, or rather, the second story that makes up the work, is a snapshot of Italian emigration to the USA, with humble jobs and the opportunities offered by the new world and the new way of emerging from an amorphous mass.
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