The Boys From Eighth and Carpenter

A book by Tom Mendicino

The Gagliano & Son Barber Shop has been in South Philly for decades. Gagliano patriarch, an Italian immigrant known as Luigi (Papa to his boys Michael and Frankie), recruited the young boys to work the shop as soon as they are old enough to learn the value of hard work.

Michael and Frankie are raised in a roughhewn working class neighborhood by their old-school Italian father. Papa may be a respected fixture in the neighborhood but at home, he is a man of little kindness who presides over the family with intense scrutiny.

Young Michael and Frankie Gagliano are bound by family…and a promise to their dying mother. After she dies, the boys and their older sister are left in the care of a cold, abusive father, and a long line of stepmothers. They grow up in a world unkind to their situation and with little love except from each other.

They both learned early the value of hard work and neither had success without effort, yet each takes these hardships and makes something vastly different of their lives. As time passes, the family grows apart in many ways. Philadelphia is also changing dramatically and Frankie is the only sibling who remains in the family home, caring for his aging father.

While Michael goes to Princeton, becomes a lawyer, and marries into money, Frankie takes over their father’s barbershop and tries to remain in a neighborhood that is gentrifying but also becoming incredibly diverse. When Frankie gets involved with the wrong person, the Gagliano home becomes the scene of a crime and Michael needs to find a way to save his brother without jeopardizing his hard won position in the world.

The Boys From Eighth And Carpenter (Kensington, September 2015) follows the Gagliano brothers from inseparable children to vastly different yet indelibly linked middle-aged men. As they change, for better and worse over the decades, Philadelphia (“Philly”) and the old neighborhood does the same.

Mendicino’s debut novel Probation was an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book and Lambda Literary Award Finalist. He resides in Philadelphia, the city that inspired The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter, with his spouse Nick Ifft.

The Boys From Eighth and Carpenter is available on Amazon and Kindle.

The Gayly – October 15, 2015 @ 9:20pm.