This collection of essays gives a critical overview of Italian American literary and cultural studies. The essays deal with notions and/or characteristics of Italian American literature and culture in a general sense, essays devoted to specific writers, and essays on filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Brian DePalma, and Martin Scorsese, who have interpreted Italian American culture in their works.

Literary Nonfiction. Film Studies. Through keenly insightful readings of a variety of films, from full-length features to shorts, Anthony Julian Tamburri illuminates the vital and continuous relationship between Italy and the United States. In doing so, he brilliantly decodes the continuous thematic interplay between Italy and Italian America. The book seeks to expand film spectators' interpretative personalities. Among the films that Tamburri discusses are The House I Live In, The Godfather and Golden Door.