Three Sisters and a Funeral

Three Sisters and a Funeral is a fictionalized memoir; a series of loosely connected short stories about a young man who grows up as the child of first-generation Italian immigrants in New York. Recurring characters turn up various family-gathering venues - going to a funeral, telling stories after supper at home, and so forth. Behind it all lie hints that many of the family are also engaged in a much darker business, the nature of which is only vaguely understood by the young protagonist.


Russo is a good writer at core - his descriptions of day-to-day customs are fascinating, and he pulls off the difficult trick of writing yards of accented dialogue in a way which is both convincing and readable…Marian Kensler, Circle Magazine