Wait Until Spring, Bandini

New York: Stackpole Sons, 1938. First Editiion . Hard Back. Very Good/Good. 5 1/2" x 8 1/2. 265 Pages. First edition of a first novel. Blue-green cloth with orange spine lettering and embossed title on front board. Slightly cocked spine. No marks or stamps and interior text pages are near flawless. Dust jacket $2.50 flap price is unclipped and the top of the spine area and corner is jagged and as much as 3/8 inch is missing. Jacket currently has a vinyl covering. Laid in is a hand-written (1988 and 1991) post card and an envelope/letter both signed by Joyce Fante the author's wife addressed to a San Francisco friend. Her Los Angeles Times 2005 obituary is also laid in. In the little Italian-American home in Colorado are five souls- passionate, Latin souls of poverty stricken people caught in tragedy and superstition. Svevo Bandini is the father's name, and he loves his white saint of a wife, Maria, and he puts his whole heart into the masonry which is his profession; but he yields to the allure of a yellow-haired widow in the town-and the results are devastating. Maria seeks solace from the priest and prays for beauty to hold her Svevo. The oldest son, who hates being an Italian, takes a certain 'pride in his father's heroic escapade-but the conflict in the boy leads finally to a smashing climax for the entire family. Superbly written, here is a tender, virile drama, touched with irony and good comedy, a novel that rushes along an inevitable course with an unmistakable current of literary beauty. This novel is semi-autobiographical.