Neorealist in Winter - Paperback

by Salvatore Pane (Author)

The Neorealist in Winter: Stories by Salvatore Pane, selected by Venita Blackburn as the winner of the 2022 Autumn House Fiction Prize, is a collection of eleven short stories following Italian characters exploring life in an era of media oversaturation.

Utilizing methods of speculative, historical, and postmodern storytelling, Pane grapples with legacies of immigration, poverty, toxic masculinity, and moral failures, while focusing on working-class issues, family drama, and PTSD. Following eleven Italian narrators, Pane builds a cast of cinematic characters across disparate times and places--a struggling director attends a house party in the la dolce vita of 1960s Rome, gangsters chase a low-level lottery runner in coal valley Scranton, a woman contemplates experimental surgery to purge memories of her childhood trauma in Minnesota, and a pro wrestling promoter descends into self-denial through his autobiography.

Author Biography

Salvatore Pane was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He is the author of two novels, Last Call in the City of Bridges and The Theory of Almost Everything, and a book of nonfiction, Mega Man 3. He's also written video games and graphic novels, and his textbook, Story Mode: Writing Narrative Video Games for Everyone, was released from Bloomsbury. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh and currently serves as an associate professor at the University of St. Thomas. He lives with his wife and Martin Scorsese the Cat in St. Paul, Minnesota.