Darkness Falls Book

To one side are the elders, the past, Rocco with his leg ulcers and failing memory. To the other are the kids: Todd, away at college; Jason, a troubled high school junior; and Jenny, blooming, unbounded, in the eighth grade. And in between is the sandwiched generation, the baby boomers, Johnny, his wife Julia, his friends, Mitch and Laurie, who are turning fifty. John Panuzio, or 'Johnny Panni' (from the Italian Gianni pane, Johnny bread, the Italian equivalent of the endearment Johnny Cake), is a guy everybody always liked, a guy who always had a smile for whomever he met, a guy bogged down beneath debt, downsizing, and a fracturing family; an average guy succumbing to the pressure, turmoil, and violence of modern life. DARKNESS FALLS--a uniquely structured novel--is written in a pattern of overlapping concentric circles representing different voices, different perspectives of the main character. The central story is Johnny's 100-hour long suicide contemplation. These core monologues are wrapped in a 100-day contemporary tale of Johnny's life which has brought him to the sharp edge of darkness. Encircling both is the episodic 100-year saga of Johnny's family from immigration in 1898. All three story lines converge, collide at the end point. From the freak accident which disrupts the peaceful suburb of East Eake at the novel's opening, life spins hopelessly out of control. Regional politics, racial tension, and tainted legacies complicate this tale of love and hate, of violence and glory, of murder, rescue and redemption.Read More