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A new novel has been added to the pantheon of notable Italian literary words. The first novel by Andrew Anselmi, a New Jersey attorney, called the “Autumn Crush” is a story of immigration and immigrants coming to the U.S. On one level it is a story of the Benedetto family (named changed in America to “Bennett”), which family immigrated from Frosinone, province of Lazio, Italy, to the U.S. The novel discusses the angst of immigrants as well as their simultaneous joy and anguish. That is, their feelings include having to leave one’s birth country to come to America, and the joy to come to a country to allow to seek their fortune and escape their destiny. However, the novel exists and operates on multiple levels. That is, it discusses the relationship between the immigrants and the following generations, the progress of the generations as they seek the American dream and American prosperity, the clash between generations, the clash between American culture and traditional Italian culture, and continuing as well as on-going discrimination against Italian-Americans in the United States.
Because the author is an attorney, it should not surprise anyone that a good part of the novel deals with a criminal case in which case the main character, Guy Bennett, is accused of murdering his business partner, Vito Petrozzini, and his wife Lena. On that level ,the novel deals with Court strategies, legal ethics, legal mechanisms, and American law.