Helen Barolini. More Italian Hours (Italian Bookshelf) (Book Review‪)‬

Helen Barolini. More Italian Hours. Boca Raton, FL: Bordighera, 2001. In the second half of the 20th century, Helen Barolini (Umbertina, 1952; 1979, The Dream Book, 1985) initiated, as did Giulia Savarese (The Weak and the Strong), Tina De Rosa (Paper Fish, 1980), and others, a new trend in Italian-American literature away from the preconceived notion of how Italian-Americans were supposed to behave and write. In 2001, Barolini's latest book, More Italian Hours, comes as a welcome addition to this new perspective on Italian-American culture. This in spite of the fact that Barolini, like many other American writers of Italian descent, refuses to be labeled an ItalianAmerican writer, an enriching but limiting label, which, in Barolini's words, provides on one hand a community, and on the other a ghetto. Although it is obvious that any writer must be judged only by the quality of his or her writing, it is essential, in order to appreciate these short stories on a deeper level, to read in them the distinctive features of a literature that hovers between Italian and American feelings, traditions, and philosophies. In the preface to The Dream Book (1985), Barolini herself wrote: "No matter how encompassing our themes and broad our views, overtones of who we are and how we feel, as formed by our values and history, show up in our work" (10). This must be our key to reading and enjoying her latest collection of stories.