Tempting Faith DiNapoli: A Novel,Used

Product Description Struggling with the conventions of "good" Catholic behavior despite her increasing anger with her dysfunctional family, Faith acts out and manages to break most of the commandments before realizing the contrast between the girl she is and the girl the church expects her to be. A first novel. 25,000 first printing. From Library Journal Faith DiNapoli is the wellmeaning eldest daughter of a dysfunctional Italian family living in 1970s Canada. With an absent father, three rambunctious siblings, and a mother who's trying to make the best of the life she's got instead of focusing on the life she wanted, young Faith takes it upon herself to assume religious responsibility and tries to be "good enough" to make up for the flaws of her whole family. She struggles between the person she is and the perfect one she wants to be, and it ultimately takes a test of faith for her to find selfacceptance and her place in the world. Gabriele, a Canadian Lifesize TV executive producer whose work has been published in the Washington Post and Nerve magazine, has written a poignant, memoirstyle debut novel that is emotionally intense and ultimately satisfying. Recommended for public libraries. Amy BrozioAndrews, Albany P.L., NYCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist This funny, winning comingofage novel features Canadian Catholic Faith DiNapoli, one of four children of Giusseppe, her Italian immigrant father, and Nancy, her smart, irreverent mother. Nancy's hobbies were listening to Johnny Mathis and being Catholic until the day Faith makes her First Communion, when Nancy decides that she is never going to church again. Her nonconformity makes her family a pariah in their city neighborhood so the DiNapolis move to a small, rural town, where her parents promptly split up. Now Faith is more worried than ever about adhering to the tenets of her faith. And although she tries hard to be a good Catholic, she spends a good deal of her early teenage years shoplifting fashionable clothes, eyeing her tattooed twentysomething neighbor, pilfering beer, and reading her mother's diary (where she discovers the shocking reason why her mother has disowned her faith). Firstnovelist Gabriele has created a wonderfully dysfunctional family continually short on money but overflowing with passion. Although Faith may be more sinner than saint, she is sure to be an inspiration to good Catholic girls everywhere.Joanne WilkinsonCopyright American Library Association. All rights reserved Review Chuck Klosterman author ofFargo Rock City Every guy has this fantasy about meeting a nice Catholic girl who's clever and smart and playful, only to discover that secretly, behind closed doors her mind is just a little bit dirty. Lisa Gabriele is the literary incarnation of that fantasy. Review About the Author Lisa Gabriele is a television producer, cinematographer, and writer. Her work has appeared on the CBC, the History Channel and the Life Network. Her writing has appeared inVice Magazine andThe Washington Post, among other publications, and she is a frequent contributor toNerve magazine. Gabriele lives in Toronto's Little Italy. Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One These are the things I remember about the city. The crumbly, brownbricked houses in our neighborhood were stacked so closely together, I used to pretend when I was four, they were the chipped, rotting teeth lining the mouth of an urban ogre, and the people who lived inside were busy little cavities. It was as though we all lived in the same house. If we were bad and sent to bed early, we could easily peek across the street into the Trevis' living room and finish watching the TV show with them, guessing at the dialogue. Privacy was something only rich people enjoyed. Our house, in Little Italy, shared a wall with the Rossis' next door, and our clotheslin