A Place in the Dark/ The Glamour of Evil
A gripping exploration of war, crime, and redemption set against the backdrop of Utica, Vietnam, and Iraq.
A Place in the Dark braids history, fiction, and politics, delving into the lives of characters haunted by the Vietnam and Iraq wars. A Vietnamese immigrant in Utica, an American Marine, and an Iraqi translator grapple with painful memories and moral ambiguities. At the center is an ex-private investigator, wrestling with guilt and heart disease.
The Glamour of Evil examines the allure of violent men in organized crime, featuring the legendary Crazy Joey Gallo. This novel explores the dark side of charisma and the search for meaning in a world where violence and betrayal intertwine. Is redemption possible in the face of such evil? Discover the answer in this compelling literary journey.
Frank Lentricchia was born to working-class parents in Utica, New York, in 1940. He earned his M.A. from Duke University in 1963, and his Ph.D. in 1966. His first two books were about modern poetry, and he then began to write more about literary theory, publishing his ground-breaking books in the early 1980s. Lentricchia served as the editor of two book series, one for The University of Chicago Press (The Wellek Library Lectures), and one for the University of Wisconsin Press (The Wisconsin Project on American Writing.) During these years, he began to drift from his previous work in theory. Lentricchia's first non-scholarly book, The Edge of Night, was published in 1994, and he soon followed with his much-noted essay in Lingua Franca, "Last Will and Testament of an Ex-Literary Critic," his farewell to certain types of academic criticism and theory. Though he did not completely abandon literary comment, Lentricchia from then on devoted himself to fiction. To date, he has published 12 books of fiction.
