Page 64 "Pissaladiere for the three of you?"

From page 64 of the book:  "..."Is it ready?" Shanzenbach asked.
"Yes," she replied. "Pissaladiere for the three of you?"
"Thank you, God!" answered Shanzenbach, bringing both his palms together.
"And we'll have two bottles of the Domaine Tempier," added Ebert. To Owen, Ebert explained the Pissaladiere: A large, rectangular flatbread, topped with tomatoes, onions, black olives, garlic, and anchovies, and baked until forgotten. It was usually served with red wine.
"It's typical in the Vaucluse," Ebert confirmed.
"I like it already," said Owen.
"What do you think?" Shanzenbach placed placing his hand on Owen's arm. "She has the buttocks of an angel, but the strength of a bull. My God, I would like to fuck her while she is making the pissaladiere."
"Arthur!" exclaimed Ebert."

Page 55 "...down in Little Italy"

 




















From page 55 of the book:  "...It was a party given by Aunt Gloria, who had splurged on her nephew nothing but the best food and wine at a restaurant down in Little Italy, and nothing nearly so grand as she would have given her daughters or her son and accompanied by the bold certainty that she would never find the cause to do so: She had wished her children could have been orphaned, like the Sarjevo children, so as to give her a rest from motherhood and give them the challenge to mature with punishment, the obstacles of compassionate hearts and deficiencies like gluttony to be worked out at a later date."

Page 52 "Blarney Rose bar on Ann Street"

From page 52 of the book:  "...We saw Leah and Thomas off at the top of the subway stairs and walked to the Blarney Rose bar on Ann Street.
"Interesting afternoon, isn't it," Owen said as he poured beer into my mug while I unburdened plates of bockwurst and cabbage, and napkin-rolled silverware from our two trays."

"...Interesting, yes, I thought, since you and your brother barely exchanged a dozen words where I would've expected a thousand. We sat surrounded by tables packed with executives, delivery men, secretaries, retail merchants, and financial wizards. The tavern was mediocre in appearance. Nothing hung on the walls. Philodendrons sat in plastic flower pots in the windows."

[Note: The sign on the bar shows Blarney Stone, another chain of bars that I and my friends often went to when I first came to NY in 1976.  I suppose some time during the last 30 years it went from Blarney Rose to Blarney Stone.  Same thing, basically. I just wanted to give you the feel of the street, the neighborhood, and at such a place there could be such a confluence of so many different kinds of people.] 

Page 49 "the opposite direction brought one to Trinity Church"

From page 49 of the book:  "...Later that afternoon, I made my way toward Union Square Station to take a downtown train to Owen's office in the financial district. Owen's building stood at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street. Within a short walking distance lay Battery Park and New York's harbor, and the view to the Statue of Liberty. A couple blocks in the opposite direction brought one to Trinity Church, its historic graveyard taking up the corner lot of that block. I had often finished lunch with Owen and walked through it, marvelling at the above-ground tombs of Robert Fulton and Alexander Hamilton, the tilted, chipped gravestones of past New York governors, church ministers, children, sea captains, and Civil War soldiers."

Page 43 "...old Mr. Piso, begun in Bari, Italy..."

From page 43 of the book:  "...Her wretched marriage, to the man who was Sylvester's father, was a godsend to her parents and helped to end the blood feud between old Mr. Sarjevo and old Mr. Piso, begun in Bari, Italy, around the time of the outbreak of the First World War. (Old Mr. Piso had coveted and stolen old Mr. Sarjevo’s sweetheart: He’d reported him to the local conscription authorities, who’d needed men to fight the encroaching Austrians; one man went off to the Italian alps to dodge exploding shells and the other (old Mr. Piso) stayed behind as reward for more than one informative betrayal of the neighborhood’s single and eligible men."