Djelloul MarbrookListen to Dejelloul reading from Saraceno grew up in Brooklyn, West Islip, Long Island, and Manhattan. He was born in Algiers in 1934. But he never knew his father. His mother, an American artist, asked her mother and her younger sister to raise him. When he was five he was sent to boarding school on Long Island. The students were mostly Britons taking refuge from Nazi bombing. By the time he started secondary school in Manhattan he had an East Anglian accent. Upon his Navy discharge he began a distinguished career in journalism where he was known as Del Marbrook. He worked first for The Providence Journal and then the Elmira Star-Gazette, The Baltimore Sun, The Winston-Salem Journal, The Washington Star, and finally as executive editor of newspapers in Ohio and New Jersey. He has published poetry and fiction in a number of literary journals and has completed four other novels. He is the English language editor of Arabesques Literary and Cultural Review, a trilingual print and online journal. Saraceno, his first novel, was published by Open Book Press. |
Saraceno
Djelloul Marbrook
's novel, Saraceno, is reflective of his own life and that of his stepfather, Dominick J. Guccione. Guccione was a childhood chum of the notorious Charles Lucana (Lucky Luciano) and knew the Gallo brothers and other Mafiosi. His view of the Mafia was poignant. When his stepson asked him to talk about it, he gave the answer made famous by Tony Soprano: "What Mafia? You read the papers too much." Drawing from his own experience as a newspaper hawker on the streets of Manhattan, Marbrook brings to life a Mafia very different from the popular version. The novel's protagonist, Billy Salviati, is based on the life of an eerily handsome and violent ex-con fresh out of Dannemora Prison and the author's friendship with him.
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