"First-time novelist Joseph Di Prisco must be a very funny guy. Confessions of Brother Eli fairly sparkles with humor that ranges from sophisticated to slapstick, in what some believe to be the most difficult writing to carry off. And yet, it's not only that. This is a novel that draws the readers in and becomes a serious meditation almost before you can put it down....
"The last third ...shifts course and tone. The comedy of Eli's life takes second place to his overwhelming sense of loss. Di Prisco steers the story on an entirely different path, as the novel becomes an elegant elegy for opportunities lost.
"[Confessions of Brother Eli] takes risks and succeeds on many levels. Di Prisco offers an engaging sensibility and an opportunity to delve into the thalweg of a lonely soul."
—J. Uschuk, Tucson Weekly
"With dry, sardonic wit, Brother Eli questions his faith and vocation, while recounting adventures that tale place at his school.... The writing and narrative voice in this book is some of the best I've come across lately, and it's very funny."
—Vincent Duffy, Akron Beacon Journal
2000 Editors' Choice: Top-ten Parenting & Families Book of the Year.
—Amazon.com
Best Parenting and Family Books of 2000
—Barnes & Noble.com
"Smart and sensitive."
—TIME Magazine
"This excellent work is to be thoroughly read, reread, and thought about."
— Library Journal
"A lively, wise, and user-friendly translation of bewildering teenaged behavior.. The authors avoid smug formulae and write in a colloquial, jargon-free style."
—Kirkus Reviews
"Readers will find intelligent observations about teens; the authors have a solid grasp on what makes adolescents tick.... The appendixes, which break down teen behavior into developmental characteristics, are particularly useful. The authors' overriding themes--that parents should influence, not control their teen's life; that teens need to be trusted, guided, and loved--are invaluable for
parents facing this challenging time in their child's life."
—Publishers Weekly
"Never preachy and always practical, Right from Wrong is an important and inspiring book about raising children with a conscience... This book is simply a gem—and a must-read for parents and teachers of young children alike." Read the full review at Amazon.com.
"We're living at a time when issues of character and integrity have achieved a new level of importance, especially given what's happened in our national political theater. I've noticed a shift in people's attitudes. They don't just want to raise happy kids; they want to raise good kids. The new book Right From Wrong: Instilling a Sense of Integrity in Your Child, by Michael Riera and Joseph Di Prisco, couldn't be more timely."—Dr. Drew Read the full review at USA Weekend.
"How to instill values in our children when they are bombarded with so many conflicting and confusing cultural messages? We live in complicated times of fleeting prosperity and catastrophic tragedy. So we are looking—now more than ever—for a moral compass that will help direct our children, a light to illuminate their path. In Right From Wrong, Mike Riera and Joe DiPrisco, tapping once again their gift for seeing the world through our children's eyes, provide both the compass and the light."
—Joan Ryan, San Francisco Chronicle
"Smart . . . noirish confection... Red-hot at the start..."
— Kirkus Reviews
It's 1996 and Dolly Leone the gambler owes his bookmaker. What can he do to get Greenie's crazy goons off his back: Twitchy, who suffers from Reverse Tourette's Syndrome, and Billy, who is big and wide as a piano and who loves to sing show tunes as he breaks down doors.
Luckily, Dolly stumbles across a manuscript called Pasquale's Wager, written in 1982 by Valentino Comfort, aka The Schoolboy. Dolly and Val were part of a blackjack team financed by Pasquale, the big money restaurateur who took a group of misfits and turned them into high-stakes professional card players--though still misfits. Back then, Dolly came up with a plan for Val to write a best-seller about the team's adventure: Casinos, big money, danger and risk. He figured it was a can't-miss proposition.
"Somehow the speaker in Joseph Di Prisco's new poems manages to install himself in the kitchenware of contemporary culture without becoming a part of it. With a wit that questions as it embraces, Poems in Which provides us with a strong, original voice." —Carl Dennis
"This is a joyous book. Even addressing unquenchable longing and the shadows of death and failure, the lyric engines of these poems propel us with vital combustions. Operatic, in that suffering and sadness are sung with the same gusto and octave-expanse as triumph and discovery, this work is proof of the presence of a large, funny and indefatigable spirit." —Dean Young
"Di Prisco mixes the immiscible: an authentic lyric voice and a sense of the self (and world) as dispersed and constructed. His poems are funny, smart, and moving; they quiz the options they exercise but are never coy." —Guy Rotella
