Johnny Critelli and the Knifemen: Two Novels
Two slim novels are bound together in this volume written by Frank Lentricchia, a follow-up to his successful debutThe Edge of Night.Like his earlier novel, both of these stories are set in Utica, New York, in the 1950s (also the setting of the Lentricchia's own childhood) and are peopled with first- and second-generation Italian-Americans.  The writing has much passion and little concern for restraint or subtlety, but what do these characters need with subtlety? They are family, after all, and workers, bosses, and butchers. Plus, some are drunk and tend to be disturbed and upset.  The prose lurches forward, intermittently pulling into weigh stations to measure out some honest anger and frustration.  The autobiographical elements ofJohnny Critelli and The Knifemenare not as explicit asThe Edge of Night, though this is a difference of degree and not of kind.