Anthony Valerio

The Mediterranean Runs Through Brooklyn

Photo by Anthony Valerio
I see my mother in a pretty dress sitting at the end of an expanse of sand. An umbrella protects her from the sun...
--From The Mediterranean Runs Through Brooklyn. AV

"Anthony Valerio's fiction bears likeness to our best dreams when the fantastical elements of the subconscious play themselves out in a vivid replica of reality. Thus, in The Mediterranean Runs Through Brooklyn, we discover that the familiar agenda of our world has on it exotica we have never before witnessed..."
--Baltimore Sun

Selected Works

Memoir
Toni Cade Bambara's One Sicilian Night
"The substance of this memoir is what makes us human when we come home from struggling in the world." --Afaa Michael Weaver
Memoir/Fiction
The Little Sailor
"The Little Sailor is a literary gem from one of our foremost writers. Anthony Valerio's evocative prose woos the characters onto the page and into the hearts of its readers. His charming, eccentric, deeply moving women emerge from a world of distant memories with extraordinary force and passion–sensual, enticing, unforgettable–and the reader is mesmerized."
–Edvige Giunta
Biography
BART: A Life of A. Bartlett Giamatti
"A Wonderful Read."
–Larry King, Newsday
Fiction
Lefty and Her Gangsters
"Subsequent artistic attempts at humanizing the don include Analyze This and The Sopranos. Both of these productions feature don characters in therapy. Valerio's use of the therapy device, though, is unique and visionary. It not only predates these films, but also shows the don in control, as therapist, not patient. This configuration emphasizes the power of Italian culture to nurture individual identity. Johnny, the don, serves as cultural nursemaid to the reborn Italian-American, Nicholas."
–George Guida, Melus

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