Street Boys [Hardcover]

"* 'Spellbinding prose... [a] thrilling, draining novel' THE TIMES * 'Carcaterra's unrelenting pace gives this sweeping saga a style all its own' MAXIM * 'Brutal... violent... devastating. Not for the faint-hearted' DAILY EXPRESS * 'Startlingly good crime fiction' OBSERVER * 'Reads like a treatment for a Martin Scorcese script' INDEPENDENT * '[A] tough two-fisted tale of New York street-life and the victory of rough justice over the law' FINANCIAL TIMES

In late September 1943, as Italy became the latest battleground in the clash between the Allies and Nazi Germany, the city of Naples was next on the list to be crushed by the German Army, no stone to be left standing. Carcaterra's novel, based on a true story, tells of the ragged band of street boys led by a rogue American soldier who defended the city against the Wermacht's finest. The vast struggle the street boys face ensure that there is no lack of drama; there is a real sense of fighting desperately against the odds as the Nazi net slowly spreads over the city. Carcaterra also has no trouble conjuring up the atmosphere and suffering of the incredible times - the story is replete with images of Italian beauty crushed by the demands of war as Neapolitan architecture topples into dust under the mechanical German war machine. But despite this Carcaterra cannot make his characters any more than two-dimensional, and though the story is full of dramatic action the twists and turns are rather predictable. This is a true testament to courage with some amazing scenes, but Carcaterra might have done better if he had simply recounted the true story rather than fictionalized it. (Kirkus UK)

Carcaterra (best known for Sleepers, 1995) inserts an American into the Four Days of Naples, when the great port city was saved from Nazi destruction by an army composed mostly of boys. The Italians made a beautiful film of this astonishing and true WWII story of Neapolitan heroism, but Carcaterra's new version supposes an American hero, a second-year law student from Kentucky, Steve Connors, now ably serving as an army corporal. Connors is sent in by his commander to reconnoiter Naples, which the Germans have recently evacuated of its citizens prior to executing Hitler's order to destroy the city. The Allied Forces are sitting on their duffs, waiting for a go-ahead from Field Marshall Montgomery, but the Germans aren't. Colonel Von Klaus's Panzer tanks are clanking down the road, picking off stray Italians and headed for what they are sure will be a cakewalk. Corporal Connors, losing his two sidekicks in action on the way into the city, gains a replacement force of scugnizzi, Neapolitan street urchins, and a wounded but still valiant mastiff. By a miracle roughly equivalent to the liquification of the blood of Naples' patron San Gennaro, the lads-and most of the lads Connors will meet-speak, not just English, but an English that reads eerily like a dubbed soundtrack. Connors himself speaks a lot of exposition, dialogue not being a Carcaterra strong point. Connors hooks up with one of the few adults in town, a clever but cynical boozer with a comely daughter, and together they set a strategy to stop the Panzers in their tracks. The action finally picks up, halfway through the story, with the onslaught of the Nazis and execution of the plan, which involves a lot of sewer scuttling for the scugnizzi, street urchins, and surprise for the conquerors of Europe. Connors and the pretty daughter will find a few quiet moments alone amid the fray. Past the clunky soundtrack and heroic Yank, there's a great story here. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Naples, Italy, during four fateful days in the fall of 1943. The only people left in the shattered, bombed-out city are the lost, abandoned children whose only goal is to survive another day. None could imagine that they would become fearless fighters and the unlikeliest heroes of World War II. They are the warriors immortalized in Street Boys, Lorenzo Carcaterra’s exhilarating new novel, a book that exceeds even his bestselling Sleepers as a riveting reading experience.

It’s late September. The war in Europe is almost won. Italy is leaderless, Mussolini already arrested by anti-Fascists. The German army has evacuated the city of Naples. Adults, even entire families, have been marched off to work camps or simply sent off to their deaths. Now, the German army is moving toward Naples to finish the job. Their chilling instructions are: If the city can’t belong to Hitler, it will belong to no one.

No one but children. Children who have been orphaned or hidden by parents in a last, defiant gesture against the Nazis. Children, some as young as ten years old, armed with just a handful of guns, unexploded bombs, and their own ingenuity. Children who are determined to take on the advancing enemy and save the city—or die trying.

There is Vincenzo Soldari, a sixteen-year-old history buff who is determined to make history by leading others with courage and self-confidence; Carlo Maldini, a middle-aged drunkard desperate to redeem himself by adding his experience to the raw exuberance of the young fighters; Nunzia Maldini, his nineteen-year-old daughter, who helps her father regain his self-respect— and loses her heart to an American G.I.; Corporal Steve Connors, a soldier sent out on reconnaissance, then cut off from his comrades—with no choice but to aid the street boys; Colonel Rudolph Van Klaus, the proud Nazi commander shamed by his own sadistic mission; and, of course, the dozens of young boys who use their few skills and great heart to try to save their city, their country, and themselves.

In its compassionate portrait of the rootless young, and its pitiless portrayal of the violence that is at once their world and their way out, Street Boys continues and deepens Lorenzo Carcaterra’s trademark themes. In its awesome scope and pure page-turning excitement, it stands as a stirring tribute to the underdog in us all—and as a singular addition to the novels about World War II.