The newest release from Sparkle Street Books marks Raymond DeCapite's return to print after a long hiatus, bringing together two of the acclaimed writer's never-before-published novels.  A master prose stylist, a conjuror of charmed dialogue, an irresistible storyteller, and a detective of unexpected emotion, DeCapite is that rarest of finds: a true and timeless original.

Go Very Highly Trippingly to and Fro/the Stretch Run

DeCapite, Raymond

Literature & Fiction

Sparkle st Books

Pat the Lion on the Head

Aegina Pr

Raymond DeCapite's second published novel, A Lost King, has been described by Kirkus Reviews as a "small masterpiece, so unique in spirit and style." If the mood of The Coming of Fabrizze is joyous, that of A Lost King is somber. Each of DeCapite's novels is original in its own way, perhaps inspired by different moods. Writing in the New York Times in 1961, Orville Prescott described Fabrizze as "an engaging modern folk tale so full of love and laughter and the joy of life that it charmed critics and numerous readers and was generally considered one of the most promising first novels of 1960." He found DeCapite's second novel, A Lost King, was a different sort of book than Fabrizze: "Fabrizze is an apologia for heroes; A Lost King is an apologia for dreamers. A more mature book, it deals with a more serious theme--the relationship of a father and son...a pathetic and perhaps tragic conflict of personalities." "A rapturous combination of hard-earned wisdom and musical wit." --from the Foreword "If truth be told, ethnic novels resurrected in the spirit of multicultural rediscovery seldom transcend their value as sociology or group uplift. One exception is the work of Raymond DeCapite, whose name keeps popping up on bibliographies of forgotten Italian-American fiction." --Kirkus Reviews "A Lost King resolves no existential dilemmas, but it is a warm and winning novel which says 'yes' to life. It should give delight to many readers." --The New York Times "DeCapite's Cleveland is utterly his own, far away from Algren's Chicago and he brings a Joycean ebullience to his stark, authentic depictions. Though they unfold slowly, in a sidewise fashion, in the end each novel packs quite a punch. With his brawny, playful dialogue, his sparse scenic descriptions and his brisk yet deep characterizations, DeCapite succeeds in doing what others only aim for: he has constructed a world that feels real." --Publishers Weekly

A Lost King: A Novel (Black Squirrel Books)

United States

Black Squirrel Books

First published in 1960, "The Coming of Fabrizze" has been called by the "New York Herald Tribune" a 'comic folklore festival about an Italian American colony in Cleveland, Ohio, back in the 1920s when all the land was a little slaphappy - and no one more so than these transplanted countrymen of the Medicis, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Christopher Columbus...and others whose hearts have belonged to Italia'. More a myth or a legend than a realistic novel or sociological novel, "Fabrizze" is a celebration of the working class and a heroic tale of an immigrant who succeeds by virtue of hard work and honesty. Author Raymond DeCapite's characterizations of Italian Americans in Cleveland have been compared to the depictions of Armenian Americans in the early writing of William Saroyan, and Ann Ross of the "New York Herald Tribune" said that DeCapite's 'greatest achievement is his ability to achieve tenderness without sentimentality'.

The Coming of Fabrizze: A Novel

Humor & Satire

The Kent State University Press/Black Squirrel Books

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Books by DeCapite, Raymond