Killing by Vic Fortezza
About the Book:
Dante Gentile, a carpenter, is quietly proud to have served in Vietnam. Twenty years later, he faces psychological warfare on the home front. His son, Junior, is off fighting the Gulf War. He suspects his wife of infidelity. His teenage daughter is a mystery to him. His father, a WWII veteran, is becoming increasingly embittered.
Set in an Italian-American community in Brooklyn, Killing is not a murder mystery or a mob epic. It focuses on family and its central theme. Adherents of political correctness are warned to stay away.
"We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do." - Francis Bacon
Is killing ever justified? If so, to what extent? These are questions that captivated me, and I don't know if anyone has ever attempted to tackle the theme to degree that I have in Killing. Of course, as is the case with all life's great questions, with life itself, it is cloaked in mystery. I also wanted to explore a family coping with the modern world, and to use my Italian-American upbringing as the backdrop.
The greatest difficulty the novel presented was the dialogue. At first I was set on using almost 100% Brooklynese, as I wanted to write the truest book possible, although it is fiction. I'm sure I was thinking of the language of the slave Mark Twain used for Jim in Huck Finn. People who read early drafts found it too difficult. Eventually, I compromised, whittling the Brooklynese to about ten percent.
Since our community is diverse, the flavor of Brooklynese is stronger in some than others, and is so in the characters. I suppose some Italian-Americans will find the language, views and behavior of some of the characters as insulting as that of those in The Sopranos or Goodfellas, although the mob is only on the periphery of the book. Too bad. I am fascinated by humans and try to capture them as they are, not as they should be.
A second aspect of the novel that some would find controversial is the inclusion of a historical figure, who also remains on the outer periphery late in the narrative. I could have used a fictional name, but everyone would know who it is, so I used the real name. My biggest concern was not what he or his supporters would think, but what Vietnam veterans would think of the action the main character proposes, even though it doesn't come off in the end. They've suffered enough at the hands of leftist artists. I was overjoyed when a veteran read and loved it. That is only one opinion, but it gave me a lot of encouragement.
In the end, Killing is a book for anyone who enjoys conflict and confrontation. The greatest irony of the novel is that no one is killed except in a dream sequence.
About the Author:
Vic Fortezza was born in Brooklyn in 1950 to Sicilian immigrants. He is a graduate of Western Michigan University, 1971. He has had more than 50 stories published worldwide. He contributes articles to buzzle.com. He hawks his books on the streets of NYC. His hobbies are muttering profanity on the golf course, and mangling notes and chords on the guitar while singing off key.
Sample his short stories at: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Read his book reviews here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A3CMFY6R6DMUTJ/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview
Order Killing at http://www.amazon.com/Killing-ebook/dp/B006520M64/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324994706&sr=1-1-spell
