Book Reviews

As the readers of this beautifully produced book will learn, the Arch of Titus is anything but uncomplicated. Most travelers to Rome who encounter the arch on their visits to the Roman Forum make a number of assumptions about it, all of which turn out to be wrong. Despite being called the Arch of Titus, it wasn’t built by that emperor, but by his younger brother, Domitian, shortly after Titus’ premature death in 81 A.D. The most famous sculpture on the arch is a panel on the inner portion that shows Roman soldiers carrying the spoils of the empire’s successful …

Salvatore Pane’s “The Neorealist in Winter” follows two well-crafted novels: “Last Call in the City of Bridges” (2012) and “The Theory of Almost Everything” (2018). Eleven stories done in a variety of voices and formal styles feature characters who are stumbling their way through American and Italian cultures, searching for ways to use what little is left of Italian-American identity to give their lives meaning in a confusing 21st century. This collection represents the best of what young writers who still claim their Italian ancestry have to offer. Throughout the stories, we meet characters raised on video games and fast …