Southwestern Oklahoma State University Associate Professor Dr. Marc DiPaolo of Weatherford has an autobiographical novel— Fake Italian: An 83% True Autobiography with Pseudonyms and Some Tall Tales—that will soon be released online and later in print.
The book takes place in New York, 1987. In a city torn apart by racial tension, Damien Cavalieri is an adolescent without a tribe. His mother — who pines for the 1950s Brooklyn Italian community she grew up in — fears he lacks commitment to his heritage. Cavalieri’s fellow Staten Islanders agree, dubbing him a “fake Italian” and bullying him for being artistic.
Complicating matters, his efforts to make friends and date girls outside of the Italian community are thwarted time and again by circumstances beyond his control. When a tragic accident shakes Cavalieri to his core, he begins a journey of self-discovery that will lead him to Italy, where he will learn, once and for all, his true identity.
DiPaolo has written three nonfiction books: Fire and Snow: Climate
Fiction from the Inklings to Game of Thrones (2018); War, Politics and Superheroes (2011); and Emma Adapted: Jane Austen’s Heroine from Book to Film (2007). He has appeared in the documentary Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics (2017),and is associate professor of English at SWOSU.
The book will be published by Bordighera Press on May 11, but the book will be available for purchase online in early February, when the first print run is expected.