Abramo's Gift

Don Greco

Review is by Molly

Abramo's Gift by Don Greco is a spellbinding chronicle: The sequence of events is set in motion with Abramo Cardone staring into the waves, wiping tears from his eyes and wondering if fellow passengers might have noticed as the ship approaches the New York Harbor. No one noticed. All eyes were fixed on the Statue of Liberty and the hope she fostered. Abramo's thoughts were filled with Angelina. That she and the baby daughter had been left behind laying in a grave an ocean from where his own would finally be filled him with more than a little melancholy.

Ellis Island, Battery Park, Abramo's uncle Michele brother of his deceased Mother, and a trolley, crowded streets and at last a hotel where he would spend his first night in America.  It was all a little overwhelming for a young man who spoke no English.

Youngstown, Ohio, 1918 is a location filled with KKK pressure, Irish and Italian immigrants and more than a little social turbulence. It has been five years since Angelina's passing away; Abramo arrives from Italy prepared to lay to rest his mourning and his old life in one of the low paying jobs found in the steel mills. Before long Abramo gains favor from one of the three superintendents at
Reid-Carnegie. Hugh Connolly has only admiration for the quiet, dedicated Abramo and his work habits, ability and ethic. Joe Hannon, on the other hand, was a co-worker who bore only abhorrence for Abramo.

The dark alley assault of Irish girl, Molly Harry, and Abramo's endeavors to give support to her are not unnoticed. Nor are they welcomed. Molly's brothers soon have her to hospital, it is left to a street child to aid the unconscious Abramo.

Writer Greco mesmerizes his readers with a cast of characters filled with verve and exuberance and angst. Greco exposes the inflexibility and exertions of the Irish and Italians who came to this country overflowing with expectation, as well as the enormous effort they undertook to carve a life for themselves in a land that was not always kind to them.

Scoundrels are often blatantly coarse; activists are frequently gallant, or, at times simply propelled into the role the fill by events. Dialog is gritty, persuasive and holds reader concentration from opening lines right on through the last paragraph.

A comprehensive and tight storyline, focused upon an extraordinary saga of everyday people orphans, immigrants, children of women who cannot care for them, social clubs and bars formed on ethnic or racial lines and suspicious of anyone who is not of their own ilk, and the church, politicians and police easily bribed, and jobs. It was vital in that time and place to have a job, no job meant no money, no hope and no way to live. Starvation was real. At last for the nearly hopeless came some hope in the shape of a home for street children named for an Irish Saint, and the beginning of Irish - Italian relationships not founded solely in the racial and ethnic tension which abounds on the pages of this well written, page turner of a novel.

Abramo's Gift is a forceful read filled with torment, rages bordering on murder and bad-tempered action, odium as well as kindness found in out of the ordinary and unanticipated corners. Abramo at last finds joyfulness and acceptance and begins a new life that is filled with the optimism and tranquility and affection and family and a home of his own that he had craved when he boarded the vessel intended to carry him to America. Enjoyed the read, happy to recommend.