The Queen of Steeplechase Park, David Ciminello
The Queen of Steeplechase Park, David Ciminello
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Queen of Steeplechase Park

Author: David Ciminello

Narrator: Elisabeth Ashby

Unabridged: 11 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/07/2024


Synopsis

The Queen of Steeplechase Park is the absolutely, positively, practically, almost-true story of infamous burlesque queen and magic meatball maker Belladonna Marie Donato.

Pregnant at fifteen after gleefully losing her virginity to pansexual neighborhood strongman Francis Anthony Mozzarelli, she is robbed of her baby by a pack of nefarious nuns and her embittered papa has her sterilized without her consent (legal in 1935). With the help of a besotted Francis and her top-secret meatball recipe, a devastated Bella embarks on a riotous quest through Depression-era Coney Island sideshows, the tawdry world of peek-a-boo striptease routines, a queer mob marriage, and a tasty collection of wisdom-filled recipes to find her lost child, herself, and maybe even true love. It all leads Bella back home, to the scene of her Original Sin, where she boldly faces matters of life and death, questions of forgiveness, and a holy mess only the healing properties of great Italian cooking can fix.

Contains mature themes.

About David Ciminello

David Ciminello is a Lambda Literary Fellow and the proud recipient of a Table 4 Writers Foundation Grant. His fiction has appeared in the Lambda Award-winning anthology Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City, Nailed magazine, and in fine artist Stephen O'Donnell's The Untold Gaze. His original screenplay Bruno, an Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting finalist, was made into a motion picture directed by Shirley MacLaine and stars Kathy Bates, Gary Sinese, and Jennifer Tilly. As an actor David has guest starred on Seinfeld ("The Barber"), Murder She Wrote, Matlock, and Kojak. David and his husband, photographer and podcast artist Brian Delaney, reside in Portland, Oregon.


Reviews

🦭 ꒰ 메모 ꒱ ۪ ݁ 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙚𝙭𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙖𝙣 𝙝𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬 i absolutely did not expect this book to have lots of heavy content like rape and domestic violence. despite this, i still liked the recipes and how the atmosphere of the book felt raw, sad, and happy in different cases. this was an over......more

Goodreads review by Blair

What a fantastic, heart-wrenching and fun ride! Ciminello has such a unique and explosive voice that carries you at the speed of the Coney Island Cyclone! Inspired by the life of his real life burlesque queen Aunt, he draws us a sensual, passionate portrait of a buxom, unapologetic 1930s Italian Ame......more

Goodreads review by Domi

Sauce a beautifully raucous telling of an Italian family, a neighborhood, a life! The poetics dancing with hilarity and bawdy storytelling makes this book sizzle. I read the ARC. I will buy this book! #NOspoilers......more