In Search of the Perfect Ravioli

Suffering from writer's block, a recently divorced writer takes a vivid journey back to his childhood in San Francisco, in an effort to sort through his present, complicated life

Los Angeles screenwriter Peter Russo's marriage has ended, and he has been struck by a whopping case of writer's block. So he indulges in a marathon ravioli-making session punctuated by telephone chats about pasta and life with his long-divorced parents and excursions into his past. This charming and earthy first novel vividly evokes the trials and absurdities of growing up--or trying to. As a boy, Peter found it tough enough just dealing with his stepmother Harriet, who was furious for 13 years ("except when we had company"). Then, when adolescence struck, he really got crazy, developing "two one-track minds": one focused on religion (on entering a diocesan school, Peter "became Catholic all of a sudden"), the other preoccupied with seeing girls naked. Woven into Peter's history are a host of characters, like grandmother Nonna and her basketball-shaped spaniel; the camp counselor adept at the "movie-star kiss"; the incomprehensible Bohemians whom Peter met when the Navy posted him to Hawaii; assorted nuns and priests; and a chatty typewriter that reminds Peter he's just "chickenshit."
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Herein, memories of an Italian-American childhood starring one Petey Russo, a scrawny kid diligently poring over his Charles Atlas magazines, contemplating the priesthood and what's under his stepmother's skirts. It's just after WW II in a San Francisco where there's still a stage show at the RKO Golden and they're still serving creamed chicken at the Haas Coffee Shop on Market Street. Petey's got a couple of problems, like: ringworm, Catholic guilt, an impossibly noisy family composed of grandmother Nonna and five uncles (``Nard, Balto, Vic, Dino, Charley, and Clo. Some of them were stevedores''), a divorced mom (``...Italian men...they all want to marry virgins...I don't think they make that flavor anymore''), and dad (``Christ, don't get me started''), but, above all, raging hormones. Backseat fumbles with semi-popular girls help on that score, though what Petey really yearns for is a date with Vonnie Cassidy, who knows about ballet and beef stroganoff. Mantee has interspersed these predictable adolescent woes with snippets of Petey's life in the present as a burned-out screenwriter in Hollywood, recently dumped by his girlfriend and striving to re- create Nonna's ravioli from a complicated recipe that includes things like calf brains and Swiss chard. The past and present Peteys aren't tonally different enough, and sticklers will wince at occasional lapses into disingenuousness. But mostly this is charming, plain, old-fun fluff. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.