Christ in Concrete

by Pietro di Donato

Other authorsStuds Terkel (Preface), Fred L. Gardaphe (Introduction)

Paperback, 1993

Status

Available

Call number

813

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

Your library

Publication

Signet Classics (1993), Paperback, 256 pages

Description

One of the 20th century's greatest works of social protest-and its 21st-century message. A classic examination of the American experience for hard-working Italian immigrants living in New York City's Lower East Side shortly before the Great Depression, Christ in Concrete focuses on a family's struggle against harsh economic realities and tenement living.

User reviews

LibraryThing member walkonmyearth

Shortly after his beloved father's death, by crucifixion on his bricklaying job, twelve year old Paul takes on his father's responsibilities. 'Christ in Concrete' is a book about pre-Great Depression Italian immigrant life; it's also a coming of age story that parallels the author's life.

Geremio,

the father, shared with his co-workers his dream that his son would continue his education. On the death of his father, Paul begged to be taught bricklaying. His father's coworkers took him into their group. Paul moved from Job, with spasms of back pain from a man's day of work, to Tenement, where family, love and community awaited.

Written in somewhat broken English, I found the writing poetic with a strong, vibrant, pulsating rhythm of the life described. The Personified Job and Tenement took on lives of their own, appearing as individual characters in this story of robust, labor intensive, caring lives.

Originally written in 1938 as a short story, Pietro di Donato has painted an awesome picture of people who rise every day to meet the challenges of life and death.

sh 3/3/2009

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LibraryThing member brianfergusonwpg

“Christ in Concrete” is a remarkable little find. Written nearly eighty years ago, but with nary an out-of-date-reference or any contrivance or corniness, it reads with dynamism and literate flight that would not seem out of place in the present day. All rings with authenticity of direct

cultural and lifeblood experience. The story is of socio-economic, class and cultural struggle. It doesn’t take much to guess that this account originates from Donato’s own experiences as worker and family member. The brutality of labour struggle though America’s depression years is portrayed, I believe, without an iota of propagandistic or didactic posturing. I get the definite sense the descriptions are based on actual events as experienced, if not close accounts. And terrible and relentless are the conditions the people must endure indeed! At the outset of the novel the father of a large family and many of his co-workers are buried in the rubble of a sub-standard structure. The well-being of a score of children is immediately threatened as there is no social safety net. All the social institutions, government, business and religion come under fire, but refuse responsibility. Injury and loss continue throughout the book, but it is not merely a rote list of misfortunes.

This novel is actually very and proudly lyrical throughout. There is joy and pride in the face of irreparable tragedy. The wellspring of this is the working-class Italian cultural origins of the author and his family. The minutiae of passion both amongst the men, women and children is as detailed as the descriptions of the technique of the artisanry. I liked and identified with it on so many levels. I even find that that the writing has interesting characteristics, almost avant-garde. Description seems to float upon the page demanding that the reader fill in detail from their imagination with a humanistic commonality (where otherwise, because of cultural distinctiveness, the brain would pause to conjecture). It causes a disjunction where one is reading what must be foreign colloquialism with familiarity. The flow changes abruptly sometimes to poetic and sensory technique, but there is no dawdling in the narrative. Nothing is included that isn’t essential.

The inevitable comparisons would be to socially-conscious writers of the time, such as Lillian Hellman or John Steinbeck, but there is little bending, posturing or allegorical ornamentation to make a point. Donato does not have to reach very far to draw on his inspirational resources and though there is emotional passion it is never affected. Intensely passionate, scathing, yet loving. I wonder how Donato managed to find the time to pull this off. Being a manual labourer for years myself I know how much extreme labour taxes one’s ability to do much else in one’s life. Truly the work of a literary genius, pretty much unheralded anymore. I want to find out more about this guy, but I’ve the feeling that this would be his masterpiece. If it isn’t the only one, even if it is, this guy, in my opinion, is one of the greatest novelists unjustly forgotten.

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