Unto the Sons - Rilegato

Based on Gay Talese's own family experiences, this book begins in the 19th century in the feudal village of Maida, original home of the Talese family. This is the world of Talese's great-grandfather - haunted by the mysticism of the Church, by faded aristocracy, by the aura of Roman triumph tempered by centuries of invasion and occupation. The book then follows the fortunes of Antario, a soldier in World War I, who settles in Paris in the 1920s, of Gaetono, who becomes a stonemason in America and of Joseph, who sets up as a tailor in New Jersey and finds allegiance divided in World War II.