"Brooklyn is a mythic place. Gowanus is its Nile," begins Vincent Coppola (Uneasy Warriors) in this humorous yet often wrenching recollection of his youth. Gowanus Crossing is not just a memoir of Coppola's childhood but also a history of the Gowanus Canal and Brooklyn, and by extrapolation, of New York City.
With a gimlet-eyed view, the former Newsweek reporter, now in his 70s, traces the changes wrought by various immigrant communities--especially his own Italian American community--as well as by the Vietnam War and the AIDS crisis. Most notably, he captures the seemingly elastic days of childhood: "Waiting defined life in those days.... Vast deserts of time, never to be reclaimed." This was both a luxury and a curse, as when he awaited the grade on a story he'd polished so many times: "I choke up when I read it." Sister Mary Malachy accused him of plagiarism and knocked him against the blackboard. Coppola was 13; he would not write another story until he was 28.
Catholicism figures prominently in Coppola's youth--its corruption (personified by the priest who raped boys in the elementary school bathroom) as well as the Catholic high schools that provided a ticket out of poverty (for Coppola and many others, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Antonin Scalia). Lesser-known heroes in Coppola's story include the mailman who conveniently failed to deliver overdue rent bills (marking them "return to sender") and his paternal grandfather, who terrified young Vinnie, but who sent enough money to family and friends back in Italy to keep food on the tables and pay for an operation.
Not only does Coppola describe the mythic quality of the Gowanus Canal of his boyhood, but he paints a mythos for all readers. The Canal, once a salt marsh, nurtured "succulent oysters," exported by the Dutch to Amsterdam; Frank Sinatra bought his sfogliatella at Cioffi's on Union Street; George Washington sheltered in the Old Stone House on Third Street with the retreating Continental Army. Coppola describes his first kiss ("I stand there, experiencing and trying to remember at the same time"), getting arrested for murder (innocent Coppola was eventually released); and watching his brother Thomas die of AIDS ("Seeing my mother cradle her dying son is the Pietà come alive"). Gallows humor permeates these stories: the "riot" of the undertakers, all vying for eight-year-old Anthony Stuto's funeral; Ray Sharkey's short-lived stardom in Hollywood.
Sister Mary may have underestimated Coppola's gifts, but readers will not. He has captured a bygone era in Brooklyn for posterity. --Jennifer M. Brown
Shelf Talker: This memoir's 32 chapters, each crafted like an elegant essay, add up to a mythic Brooklyn boyhood in Gowanus Crossing.