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Book Summary and Reviews of Elizabeth Street by Laurie Fabiano

Elizabeth Street by Laurie Fabiano

Elizabeth Street

by Laurie Fabiano

  • Readers' Rating (3):
  • Published:
  • May 2010, 400 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Based on true events, Elizabeth Street is a multigenerational saga that opens in an Italian village in the 1900's, and crosses the ocean to New York's Lower East Side.

At the heart of the novel is Giovanna, whose family is targeted by the notorious Black Hand -the precursor to the Mafia. Elizabeth Street brings to light a period in history when Italian immigrant neighborhoods lived in fear of Black Hand extortion and violence-a reality that defies the romanticized depiction of the Mafia. Here, the author reveals the merciless terror of the Black Hand-and the impact their crimes had on her family. Giovanna is based on Fabiano's great-grandmother, and the book's heroes and villains - such as Lieutenant Petrosino, the crusading cop and "Lupo the Wolf," a cold-blooded criminal - are drawn from real life in this thrilling tale. While set in a dynamic historical context, Elizabeth Street is, above all, the dramatic story of the heroine, Giovanna, and how she triumphed over tragedy.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Fabiano is dead-on in her portrait of the Italian-American immigrant experience. This engrossing cross-generational saga centers on the experiences of Giovanna Costa, from the small Italian fishing village where she is born to the bustling streets of New York's Lower East Side where she struggles to raise her family and make a living as a midwife after the death of her first husband...Basing this story--including the kidnapping--on her own family's immigrant experiences, Fabiano provides a wealth of period detail, infusing the compulsively readable narrative with an authentic sense of time, place, and community."―Booklist

This information about Elizabeth Street was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Laurie Fabiano

Laurie Fabiano loves her family and all things Italian. She has dedicated her career to marketing and event production for nonprofit organizations empowering others to share their life stories and raising hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of those in need. This book, her first, is her story. Laurie lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, with her husband, Joe, and their daughter, Siena.

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