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    Street Boys
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    Street Boys
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    Street Boys
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    Street Boys

    Written by Lorenzo Carcaterra

    Narrated by Joe Mantegna

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Naples, Italy, during four fateful days in the fall of 1943. The only people left in the shattered, bombed-out city are the lost, abandoned children whose only goal is to survive another day. None could imagine that they would become fearless fighters and the unlikeliest heroes of World War II. They are the warriors immortalized in Street Boys, Lorenzo Carcaterra's exhilarating new novel, a book that exceeds even his bestselling Sleepers as a riveting reading experience.

    It's late September. The war in Europe is almost won. Italy is leaderless, Mussolini already arrested by anti-Fascists. The German army has evacuated the city of Naples. Adults, even entire families, have been marched off to work camps or simply sent off to their deaths. Now, the German army is moving toward Naples to finish the job. Their chilling instructions are: If the city can't belong to Hitler, it will belong to no one.

    No one but children. Children who have been orphaned or hidden by parents in a last, defiant gesture against the Nazis. Children, some as young as ten years old, armed with just a handful of guns, unexploded bombs, and their own ingenuity. Children who are determined to take on the advancing enemy and save the city-or die trying.

    There is Vincenzo Soldari, a sixteen-year-old history buff who is determined to make history by leading others with courage and self-confidence; Carlo Maldini, a middle-aged drunkard desperate to redeem himself by adding his experience to the raw exuberance of the young fighters; Nunzia Maldini, his nineteen-year-old daughter, who helps her father regain his self-respect- and loses her heart to an American G.I.; Corporal Steve Connors, a soldier sent out on reconnaissance, then cut off from his comrades-with no choice but to aid the street boys; Colonel Rudolph Van Klaus, the proud Nazi commander shamed by his own sadistic mission; and, of course, the dozens of young boys who use their few skills and great heart to try to save their city, their country, and themselves.

    In its compassionate portrait of the rootless young, and its pitiless portrayal of the violence that is at once their world and their way out, Street Boys continues and deepens Lorenzo Carcaterra's trademark themes. In its awesome scope and pure page-turning excitement, it stands as a stirring tribute to the underdog in us all-and as a singular addition to the novels about World War II.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 20, 2002
    ISBN9780739301074
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Street Boys

    3.5/5

    33 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      "We do many things we shouldn't do in the course of a life," Maldini said. "It doesn't make them right or wrong, just a part of who we are. In times like these, it becomes too much of a chore to judge others."There are moments when we are reading that the author touches our soul with simple words that have a profound meaning to the story and to the essence of the meaning of life. The quote above is only one such example as spoken by the character of Maldini, a grandfather.

      Lorenzo Carcaterra has created a gripping, page-turning novel based on an actual 4-day period of history in the city of Naples during WWII.

      My father was a WWII Army veteran that served as one of the many Allied land forces in the Mediterranean theater advancing from North Africa to Sicily to Rome. This novel provides another glimpse to understanding why my father never spoke about the war unless in the company of his two closest Army buddies and if wives and children entered the room the conversation turned once again to the present and future leaving the past behind.

      I thought that after reading "Lilac Girls" by Martha Hall Kelly that there would not be another novel about WWII that would be as compelling, simultaneously as heart-wrenching and heart-warming. I was wrong. This novel speaks to the horrors of war and resilience in action.
    • 4/5
      If you're looking for a good crime fiction read, do pick up Lorenzo Carcaterra's books. Street Boys is another gripping plot with non-stop action. But a group of street boys outsmarting the horrible and intelligent Germans at every turn is definitely quite stretched. Nevertheless, I am still awed by his storytelling abilities.
    • 1/5
      Fictionalised account of Milano street boys who fend off Nazi attempt to raze city near end of WWII. Pretty shlocky and unbelievable.