The Brotherhood of the Grape — John Fante

LUSTY OLD NICK MOLISEAS ZESTY AS ZORBA, AS RUTHLESS IN HIS WAYS AS DON CORLEONE.

Stonemason, Italian patriarch, at 77 his fiendish antics still outrage his family and rock San Joaquin Valley with raging, womanizing, wine-guzzling glee. After a lifetime spent tormenting his wife and terrorizing his sons, Nick is determined to erect one last monument in stone, a tribute to his ancient Abruzzi art. Henry Molise, successful writer, family peacemaker, at 50, suddenly finds himself cast as apprentice, bamboozled into a final orgy of macho labor, sex and wine. With all the love, raucous tenderness and piercing rage only families can inspire, Henry faces his father and The Brotherhood of the Grape in a wild, drunken disaster calculated to cuckold age and time.