“Time Meant Nothing”: A New Reading of Pietro di Donato's Three Circles of Light beyond Autobiography and Stereotypes

As a result of the gradual rise of Italian American studies in academic circles, rereading Pietro di Donato's forgotten works—those after Christ in Concrete ([1939] 1993)—not only as reflective of the Italian American milieu but also as mirroring a different point of view on US society, culture, and literature, proves essential to reassess critical consideration of this author. Often overlooked by critics and scholars, his later fiction was characterized as suffering from “a qualitative drop after the overwhelming success of Christ in Concrete in 1939” (Esposito 1980a, 188).¹ In contrast with this commonly shared point of view, this article scrutinizes his third novel, Three Circles of Light (1960), as being a highly experimental piece in the writer's artistic continuum and an interesting example of deconstruction of the most widespread stereotypes about Italian Americans. I argue, indeed, that the unforgettable gallery of characters in Three Circles of...