Jerome Tuccille's hilarious memoir about religious conflict and sexual adventurism has been described as a cross between J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man. Tuccille impresses the reader with his writing skills and his command of the English language. He has a great wit and a fine sense of style. His description is appropriately detailed and his imagery vivid and striking. He's excellent at blending narrative with exposition. I found myself quite involved in the exciting, emotional, and traumatic incidents in his book. I was unable to put it down until I had finished reading it. This doesn't happen often in the publishing field. The book is an eminently readable collection of yarns, covering the author's roots in the Bronx, his travels around the globe, and his various religious conversions and sexual misadventures. Tuccille is a talented storyteller, and he has a knack for bragging and mocking himself at the same time.
Genre: RELIGION / GeneralThis book has become an ebook best-seller on Amazon and is continuing to sell consistently and largely on Amazon.
You know how it was in the Bronx in 1958. The trolley car no longer
made the run from the last stop on East Tremont Avenue in Throgs
Neck to the terminal in West Farms. Instead you hopped aboard the city
bus that stopped across the street, then rode it all the way to West Farms,
northeast by Little Italy on Arthur Avenue, past Fordham University
and Kingsbridge Heights, and finally to Broadway and 242nd Street in
Riverdale, near the city limits, just south of Yonkers.
The cross-county ride was interminable, taking more than an hour on
the best days and sometimes as long as an hour and a half in bad weather,
or when the traffic was backed up. The bus belched black fumes all the
way, unlike the electrified old trolley car that used to stop in front of your
house. Your only consolation during the daily trek was glancing over at
Elaine Fiori across the aisle and trying to catch a glimpse of her ample
breasts and killer legs when she wasn’t looking (sexism was an unknown
concept at the time), instead of concentrating on the homework in your
lap. Elaine went to a Catholic girls’ college not too far from the all-boys
Catholic college you attended (Manhattan College, an engineering school
run by perverted French Christian Brothers). You were dying to hike her
skirt up around her waist and peek inside her bra, but she was already
in love with a Secret Service agent, whom she would marry before she
graduated from college.
