Elizabeth Street by Laurie Fabiano
Based on true events, Elizabeth Street is a multigenerational saga that opens in an Italian village in the 1900’s, and crosses the ocean to New York’s Lower East Side. At the heart of the novel is Giovanna, whose family is targeted by the notorious Black Hand—the precursor to the Mafia. Elizabeth Street brings to light a period in history when Italian immigrant neighborhoods lived in fear of Black Hand extortion and violence—a reality that defies the romanticized depiction of the Mafia. Here, the author reveals the merciless terror of the Black Hand—and the impact their crimes had on her family. Giovanna is based on Fabiano’s great-grandmother, and the book’s heroes and villains—such as Lieutenant Petrosino, the crusading cop and “Lupo the Wolf,” a cold-blooded criminal—are drawn from real life in this thrilling tale. While set in a dynamic historical context, Elizabeth Street is, above all, the dramatic story of the heroine, Giovanna, and how she triumphed over tragedy.
“Elizabeth Street is a great read, a fascinating account of the Italian immigrant experience at the turn of the century that is at once inspiring and terrifyingBefore there was The Godfather, there was the Black Hand—and Laurie Fabiano has turned her family’s experience into a riveting tale.” —Tom Brokaw “Historians have done what they can to illuminate the world of the earliest American Mafiosi, but there is only so much that the few surviving documents can tell us. Laurie Fabiano takes us much further in Elizabeth Street. Basing her story on her own family narratives and a deep understanding of Italian-Americans, she paints a vivid portrait not just of immigrants’ lives in the first years of the last century, but of the vicious criminals who preyed on them. Readers will come away from this book with a deep understanding of the early Mafia, its characters and methods—and some insights that historians can’t give them.” —Dr. Mike Dash, author of The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder and the Birth of the American Mafia “Elizabeth Street is both a fascinating immigrant story and an intimate portrait of how a first-generation American—and the author’s own great-grandmother—outwits one of the most brutal crime organizations of the early 20th century.” —Maria Laurino “Fabiano is dead-on in her portrait of the Italian-American immigrant experience. This engrossing cross-generational saga centers on the experiences of Giovanna Costa, from the small Italian fishing village where she is born to the bustling streets of New York’s Lower East Side where she struggles to raise her family and make a living as a midwife after the death of her first husband…Basing this story—including the kidnapping—on her own family’s immigrant experiences, Fabiano provides a wealth of period detail, infusing the compulsively readable narrative with an authentic sense of time, place, and community. —Booklist
Laurie Fabiano loves her family and all things Italian. She has dedicated her career to marketing and event production for nonprofit organizations, empowering others to share their life stories and raising hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of those in need. This book, her first, is her story. Laurie lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, with her husband, Joe, and their daughter, Siena.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781935597025 |
| ISBN 10 | 1935597027 |
| Title | Elizabeth Street |
| Author | Laurie Fabiano |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Amazon Publishing |
| Year published | 2010-05-04 |
| Number of pages | 400 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |