Set in 1970's Bensonhurst, an Italian enclave of Brooklyn,
New York, Suzanne Corso's BROOKLYN STORY is a coming of age
story lightly reminiscent of the Oscar-winning movie,
Goodfellas. The thing that makes this story standout from a
host of Mafia-themed tales is that it is told, not from the
perspective of one of the wiseguys or wannabes, but from the
perspective of one of the women on the periphery of that
violent world.
Samantha's a high school student, a writer, with dreams of
something bigger and better than the small neighborhood
where she's growing up. She lives on welfare and food
stamps with her Jewish grandmother and mother, the latter of
whom is fighting multiple addictions. Her absentee Italian
father is nowhere to be found. In this neighborhood, the
class system is such that full-blooded Italians reign
supreme. Only half Italian and poor, Samantha desperately
wants to belong as much as she wants to escape. As do teen
girls of all socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, after
living vicariously through a girlfriend dripping in designer
clothing, Sam takes a liking to an older, neighborhood bad
boy. The only problem is that here the bad boys are headed
for a world filled with violence and criminal activity, and
in which there is, at best, a minimal, very twisted regard
for women.
As someone who came up during that same period in a small
town on the outskirts of New York City, I can say that Corso
nailed the language and feel of coming of age in that place
in that time. At times, this first-person story reads as
though it were biographical rather than fictional, in part
because Corso does an excellent job of capturing the tiny
details that cause a story like this to leap off the page.
The beauty of BROOKLYN STORY is that readers from all walks
of life can relate to Samantha's teen trials and desires.
To belong. To find her place in the world so she can make
her mark in the future. To be desirable to the opposite
sex. To be fashionable and trendy. To find someone to love
and be loved by. What teenage girl doesn't seek these things?
Sam grapples with how much of herself and her dreams she's
willing to sacrifice in order to be with a guy who shows
less and less respect for her, and with whom she begins to
feel like more of a prop than a person. From the beginning,
Corso imbues Sam with a strength of character that, even as
she makes less than stellar decisions, suggests she'll make
it out of the vortex of confusing emotions and the noxious
segment of community that threatens to swallow her. It is
this strength that makes BROOKLYN STORY a gratifying read.
To me, some people lived in the real world and others lived Brooklyn. . . .
It's the summer of 1978, and Samantha Bonti is fifteen years old, half Jewish and half Italian, and hesitantly edging toward pure Brooklyn, even if her dreams of something more are bigger than the neighborhood girls' teased hair. She lives in Bensonhurst with her mother, Joan, a woman abandoned and scarred in a ruinous marriage, poisoned with cynicism, and shackled by addictions; and with her Grandma Ruth, Samantha's loudest and most opinionated source of encouragement. As flawed as they are, they are family.
Samantha's best friend is Janice Caputo, a girl who understands, as well as Samantha does, this close-knit community of ancestors and traditions that stand like roadblocks, this insular overcrowded little world of controlling mobsters who mold their women like Jell-O; and of the wannabes, the charismatic young guys who are willing to engage in anything illegal to get a shot at playing with the big boys. Yet, Samantha has something Janice doesn't—a desire to become a writer and to escape the destiny that is assumed for all of them in the outer reaches of Bensonhurst. And it's to be had just across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Then comes Tony Kroon.
Older than Samantha, Tony is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, half-Sicilian, half-Dutch mobster wannabe. A Bensonhurst Adonis. Taken in by his adoring attention, and empathetic to Tony's own struggles with identity, Samantha is falling in love, even when she's warned never to ask imprudent questions of Tony's life. Even when her family and friends warn her to stay away. Even when Samantha knows she's too smart to fall this deep . . . but the last thing she wants is the first thing to happen. Unable to resist Tony's seductive charms, Samantha soon finds herself swallowed up by dangerous circumstances that threaten to jeopardize more than her dreams. Grandma Ruth's advice: Samantha had better write herself out this story and into a new one, fast.
Told from the adult perspective, this is a powerful, true-to-life novel of leaving the past to history and the future to fate—of restoring hope where there was none, and reaching for dreams in an inspiring promise of paradise called Manhattan.
Excerpt
Some people lived in the real world and others lived in Brooklyn. My name is Samantha Bonti and of course I was one of the chosen. At age fifteen, I was seduced into a life that shattered my innocence, a life that tore at my convictions and my very soul, a life that brought me four years later to the sunlit steps of the courthouse in downtown Brooklyn. Now, at age twenty-one I stood below the stone facade, watching strangers come and go with purposeful strides; I paused to contemplate how I got there. The dark events of my recent past replayed in my mind in an instant, while thoughts about my disadvantaged beginnings and a lifetime of struggle flooded my consciousness. It had been no small blessing of Providence, I knew, to be born without deformity, to be endowed with a fierce determination to make my own way in the world and to be favored with His hand that worked through others as I matured. My mother Joan tried her best to give me a better life filled with possibility. But she was scarred by her own past, poisoned with cynicism and shackled by addiction and poor health. Mom was a striking woman on the outside and a frail one within. Her beauty was obvious from a distance, but as one got closer one saw that her bottle-dyed, wavy auburn tresses covered deep lines in her face. A witty woman who had had the potential to be brilliant and used to be full of life and spunk, mom had been beaten down by an abusive husband. Vito Bonti was a Catholic immigrant from Italy and as hard- headed a Sicilian as there ever was. A Vietnam vet who owned a pizzeria, he did nothing for mom and blamed her for his bitter disposition. After all, mom was nothing more to him than a poor Jewish girl from Brooklyn and he never failed to remind her of that. Despite her willingness to forgo her own faith and take up his beliefs and his customs, he cheated on her with other women as often as he could steal away. When Joan and Vito were alone in their apartment, they argued long and loud enough for neighbors to hear. In a fit of rage one month before I was born, he threw a car jack at my mother’s pregnant belly. It forced her into premature labor due from the hemorrhaging and she was rushed to the hospital. The doctors said if I were lucky enough to be born; I would most likely have severe brain damage by the impact of the blow, or even worse be a stillborn. Fate achieved, fear stepped aside and I survived. Then Vito abandoned her. He never sent a penny for support, and never came around. I saw him once by chance when I was six years old when mom pointed him out in the neighborhood. He was a nice-looking man with long black hair and a scruffy beard, who wore a brown shirt buttoned to the collar that had pink flowers on it. I ran to my father and hugged his legs tightly. He pulled away, and I never saw him again. Maybe it was better that way, I thought. Mom had it tough enough as it was, living on Social Services and living with disease that visited her weakened body; she didn’t need more of Vito’s physical abuse on top of her hardships. Mom may have felt that having a daughter was one of them, but she never said that to me. And although there were moments when I knew she loved me—when she wouldn’t let me hang out in the streets with neighborhood kids and when she kept me away from boys—I only heard her say those words once. Instead, she criticized me at every turn and picked fights with me without any provocation on my part. Mom’s only comforts were cigarettes and going unconscious with drink, prescription meds and the recreational drugs she used on occasion. Sniffing glue was what she did most because it was cheap—alone, or with seedy friends or even my friends. Over time, illness drained her body and addiction poisoned her spirit. To her credit, mom kept her worst habits and her demons from me as best she could and told me now and then that there was another way to live."
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