Darkness Falls: An American Story

by John M. Del Vecchio

A successful fifty-year-old advertising executive, John Panuzio's peaceful world begins to disintegrate as a freak accident disrupts his calm Connecticut suburb, and he finds himself increasingly estranged from his family and community as his father is dying, violence threatens his town, and he contemplates suicide. 20,000 first printing.

Genres: Fiction

368 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1998

About the author

John M. Del Vecchio graduated from Lafeyette College in 1969. He was drafted and sent to Vietnam in 1970, where he served as combat correspondent in the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile). In 1971 he was awarded a Bronze Star for Heroism in Ground Combat. He is author of The 13th Valley, Darkness Falls, Carry Me Home, For the Sake of All Living Things, and other works.

Reviews

[Joni Aveni · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book about an Italian American family. But I really didn’t. The writing was stilted and at times hard to follow. I found myself skipping the italicized chapters which were maddening streams of consciousness. Then there were the political treatises thinly disguised as dialogue that didn’t work for me either. In fact the only thing that kept me reading till the end was wanting to know who killed Aaron. I probably could have just skipped to the last chapter early on and saved myself from wasting two weeks of my life that I’ll never have back.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Del Vecchio is best known for his Vietnam novels, written from his own experience in that war. This book, too, draws from his personal history, this time as an Italian-American, growing up in a large family in Connecticut. And like his other novels (13th Valley; For All Things Living; Carry Me Home), his characters, plot and writing is so good, you'll keep reading even if your vision of the world is quite different from the author's (note that this reviewer is a bleeding heart liberal pacifist WASP -- Del Vecchio is not)!

This story covers so much that an attempt to explain it in detail may make it sound too complicated. The writing is so good, it isn't too complicated, but it isn't a quick read.

Del Vecchio writes primarily from the view of Johnny Panuzio, a middle-aged husband and father in the process of being downsized from his job as an advertising executive. He struggles with a gambling addiction while functioning as best friend to Mitch (a black coworker), a good husband to Julia (fresh back in the workplace as an executive in a publishing company), a dedicated father to a college-aged son, and a son and daughter in high school, a patient son to Rocco, who lives with the family and is slowly losing his memories.

Add a mysterious death, a love story, corporate game-playing, and some local politics, all touched by a rich Italian-American heritage, and you have a book you won't want to put down. In addition to Johnny Panuzio's viewpoint, Del Vecchio also offers the reader a view from the murdered high school student (through publications of letters the young man had written), as well as from the views of his teen-aged son and his aging father. There are flashbacks from Johnny's childhood, as well as a running series of his own "final thoughts".

A good, thick read that will make you think long after you've put it back on the shelf.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 3 out of 5]

What more could happen to this family, this town?

[Mary Banken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Life in American Suburbia at the close of the 20th century... Complex, uncertain, disturbing.