The Sunday Macaroni Club: A Novel - Hardcover

Lopez, Steve

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151002649 ISBN 13: 9780151002641

Publisher: Harcourt, 1997

Synopsis

"It’s a city of bottom feeders. With no bottom." Assistant District Attorney Lisa Savitch has a problem. Her boss wants her to nail the Sunday Macaroni Club-five remnants of the old political machine led by Augie Sangiamino, a former U.S. Senator with a conviction for fraud, now a political consultant. Why are these has-beens so important when there are children in Philadelphia dying of leukemia in the vicinity of an oil refinery? As for Augie, it's like he says at grace on Sunday: "We thank you, Lord, for this wonderful macaroni dinner. But we could use a little help, to tell you the truth, in this campaign." His two candidates are way behind in the polls, and he needs a miracle, divine or otherwise, to reverse the trend. Miracles, of course, cost money, and that's where the Sunday Macaroni Club dives into a glorious-and usually hilarious-carnival of greed, ambition, and self-preservation. Its hoorifying politics are democracy in America, and few people understand those better than Steve Lopez or have more fun painting them large. The characters of The Sunday Macaroni Club spill off the page with a furious energy and unexpected decency-by turns appalling, alluring, and endearing, they are altogether unforgettable.

About this title

About the Author

Steve Lopez is Senior Writer-at-large for Time Inc.

Reviews

Hilariously cynical take on small-time ethnic politicos and other craven creeps in the City of Brotherly Love, from an award-winning former Philadelphia Inquirer columnist. Abandoning the mawkish sentimentality of Third and Indiana (1994), his mean-streets social-realist debut, Lopez now goes for a fiercely funny epic that pits the feckless members of a creaking, contentedly sleazy old-time South Philly political machine against idealistic, terminally beautiful Assistant D.A. Lisa Savitch and her street-wise, ``part-time'' FBI agent sidekick, Mike Muldoon. Lopez uses a deliriously complicated plot to deliver a stinging satire. It seems that former US Senator Augie Sangiamo, who listens to Sinatra while chowing down with his cronies on pasta and ``gravy'' every Sunday afternoon, wants to maintain his weakening hold on his turbulent, working-class neighborhood by using illegal campaign funds drawn from Atlantic City casinos to buy elections for the grandly corrupt State Representative William ``Ham'' Flaherty and Common Pleas Judge Isadore ``Izzy'' Weiner. The ambitious D.A., who once sent Sangiamo to jail, wants Savitch, an athletic, cigarette-puffing import from Boston who can't quite manage the local patois, to ``bring me the heads of these dinosaurs so we can stuff them, mount them and put them on display at the Academy of Natural Science.'' Savitch is more interested in investigating a release of toxic fumes from the city's oil refinery, and, meanwhile, Muldoon can't keep his eyes off Savitch's legs. Throughut, comically vile insiders square off against stiff, feckless outsiders and only the morally upright seem to suffer. As Muldoon says, ``we end up with bribery, a white-collar scandal, a public health epidemic, two murders, thirty-seven felony counts. Where's our bonus?'' While it lacks the depth of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire, Lopez's scathingly sarcastic top-to-bottom exploration of urban corruption overwhelms with dead-on characterizations and lingering belly-laughs. (First printing of 50,000; $50,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this humorous portrayal of political corruption and corporate greed, Lopez, columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, provides a story filled with convincing characterizations and memorable events. Philadelphia assistant district attorney Lisa Savitch, a beautiful, intensely bitter, chain-smoking marathon runner with a tough demeanor, has been assigned to collar the "Sunday Macaroni Club," five members of a down-and-out South Philadelphia political machine. Augie Sangiamano, ex-con and former U.S. Senator, is the longtime leader of the club, trying desperately to grab some vestige of his former power. While Savitch is looking into the case (and bewitching the FBI agent assigned to work with her), she discovers a link between the club and a local oil company that is releasing toxic fumes into neighborhoods where suspicious numbers of children are dying of leukemia. Before this investigation is through, there will be two murders, surprising twists and turns, and a satisfying conclusion to this imaginative, entertaining work. Kathleen Hughes

Lopez, a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and author of Third and Indiana (Viking, 1994), brings good-ol'-boy, big-city politics to life in his second novel. Sharp young prosecutor Lisa Savitch escapes from Boston after a scandalous affair and joins the district attorney's office in Philly. She and retired FBI agent Mike Muldoon attempt to expose the shady deals of a colorful gang of characters who call themselves the Sunday Macaroni Club and are led by ex-con, ex-senatorial boss Augie Sangiamino. Needing campaign financing for his two no-good candidates, Augie accepts surreptitious contributions from Liberty Oil, a polluter pummeled by the press for a recent spate of cancer deaths among neighborhood children. While depicting political loyalty and betrayal, Lopez also shines a saucy sidelight into Lisa's romantic life. Engaging and fun, this novel is recommended for all fiction collections.
-?Sheila Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harcourt
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151002649
• ISBN 13: 9780151002641
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384