Laidback and Chatty Book Review: Gowanus Crossing, by Vincent Coppola

[00:00:02]I uh I had to switch devices because this particular review I typed on my iPad and not my laptop. I got an iPad about a month ago. Yeah, it was about a month ago now. Haven't had an iPad in years. Um I have a very old iPad that's over a decade old. The model of it is now over a decade old and it doesn't even take updates anymore, so it's obsolete. And um I scored a deal on this iPad and cuz I wanted to start using this to edit video content on and it's a lot more portable than my laptop. My laptop's getting old, but it has some life left and I didn't want to risk losing my video content. So, this is just faster and easy to work in. But I got it for a steal. Refurbished in like new condition.

[00:00:50]Got it for a steal. Um and I'm very pleased with it. So, I'm using this for this video.

[00:00:56]Guan is Crossing. Okay, honey.

[00:00:59]Guan is Crossing by Vincent Copala. You know, I just realized something. I just have a chronically crooked background.

[00:01:05]You know what, guys? That's just the vibe. That's just what we're going for these days. I know it some bothers some people. Shoot, it bothers me. But it's the the tripod itself is wonky. One of these days I'm going to get a new one, but it is not this day. Guanis Crossing, a Brooklyn boyhood by Vincent Koka.

[00:01:22]This is a memoir, non-fiction.

[00:01:24]Obviously, it's a memoir. the I have a coworker who's from Boston and when I tell you he's from Boston, that accent is so thick. Coming from a person who was born in Massachusetts, okay, and has lived in New England.

[00:01:42]If you aren't used to it, you're going to look at him be like, "What are you saying?" Cuz the accent is wild. I think it's great. Anyway, all of that to say, he'll call me for work and instead of saying, "Alana, I have a question." He'll say, "Can I speak to Diane?" Diane speaking. What do you need, Larry?

[00:02:03]Speaking of New England, and then I'm going to hop into Guana's Crossing. True story. Make it up.

[00:02:09]>> [gasps and sighs] >> So, in November of 2022, uh my parents and I and my sister, we we uh spent Thanksgiving in Maine, and we stayed in this cute little two-bedroom cabin, kind of like cabins setup, right? There are multiple little cabins on this property. It had a little, you know, and there was still a communal area that had served continental breakfast. It was familyowned. It was not a chain. It's familyowned. And so me, my sister, and my mom one morning were sitting in the communal area having our enjoying our continental breakfast. And my mom is very friendly.

[00:02:53]and she has the talent of talking with strangers and just next thing you know they're laughing and kiking and hugging like they've known each other their whole life. And this is relevant, I promise. [snorts] We're going to talk about the Italian mafia a little bit here, but I'm going to talk about the Irish mafia for a second.

[00:03:12]And my mom ends up striking up this conversation with a man. They they look to be about the same they look to be of the same generation. Okay.

[00:03:23]and he is originally from Boston.

[00:03:26]He's um of Irish background. He could still speak Gaelic actually, which is I don't I was surprised he could still speak Gaelic and somehow, but he ended up retiring in Maine.

[00:03:42]Um, and somehow, I don't know how he and my mom ended up on an entire conversation about Irish settlers in the United States and how something they exchanged names. His last name was my mother's maiden name. Okay, my mom does have quite a bit of Irish background ancestry on her. Okay.

[00:04:08]And then I looked at them and they have this their eye color is the exact same shade of green. Like you could see that there was something going on there that was it seemed to be of the same relation in the eyes. Okay. And then my he was like, "Yeah, I'm related to this group of Irish men that came down this way and then came up and a group of them settled here and the rest moved up this way."

[00:04:29]Mom was like, "I'm related to that same group of Irish men." Next thing you know, they're hugging and kissing and calling each other cousin.

[00:04:37]And this man tells me how tells us how he was eventually employed by the Boston Police Department because he had been involved with the Irish mafia, but when he got out of the mafia, he ended up working for the government to work against the mafia.

[00:04:58]Crazy. Anyway, Guanis Crossing, Vincent Lopola. This is not going to have any quotes in it because I have an advanced reader copy of this book. It published early June and it was sent to me by the publisher Halt Henry Hol Henry Hol and Company. And so, Guanas Crossing, a Brooklyn boy boyhood is Vincent Copela's memoir detailing the realities of growing up in Brooklyn in an Italian-American neighborhood before there was a Whole Foods in Brooklyn.

[00:05:29]before Brooklyn has became, you know, known for its fancy, trendy lofts, social media friendly cafes. This is a completely different Brooklyn, just like now Harlem, if I'm not mistaken, also has a Whole Foods.

[00:05:47]Vincent Copela is is writing about coming of age in the 1970s in an enclave with the mafia and the Catholic church and this cast of a larger than-l life characters coming together in this Italian-American neighborhood and he unflinchingly portrays a tight-knit community that is full of dichotoies. So Copela begins this memoir with the presence of the Guanis River. This is This river during his time was incredibly to toxic and contaminated. It stank. He It was like a science experiment, bubbling and oozing and you would not want to fall into this river.

[00:06:26]It would kill you. And yet he describes it as fertile.

[00:06:31]There is this constant theme throughout the memoir of a neighborhood that during his time it was a tumultuous environment and this toxic river is a reflection of what he grew up around and the harsh realities and the dangerous realities of his time.

[00:06:50]However, alluding to it as fertile, he's saying how this area would eventually become prime real estate, an area that people would want to live in.

[00:07:01]as we can see now in the 21st century.

[00:07:03]And so we have a narrative here in Guanas Crossing that is incredibly unapologetic. It's not politically correct by any stretch of the imagination. And I found that to be incredibly refreshing. Copala is blunt about his Brooklyn youth. He uses the language that he heard growing up. He's not filtering anything. He uses the slurs of the time because that's what he heard. He does not sanitize sanitize, excuse me, anything to suit what may or may not make a modern reader comfortable. And I appreciated that. I can't stand sanitized literature. Okay?

[00:07:39]I can't. And this is not sanitized by any stretch of the imagination. Just tell me what it is. Just I I want to know. That's what made this memoir so compelling. He's describing the tensions and dynamics between various demographics, how his community was wary of outsiders, the tensions between the Italian-American community and the Puerto Ricans and the black community.

[00:07:59]In the language that he heard growing up, he he writes about the realities of the working class during this time. Um, you have multi-generational Italian families orbiting around traditional foods and family dynamics in the Catholic Church.

[00:08:15]Yet, this is a community that when one of their own needed help, they'd give the other the shirt off their back. But at the same time, there was he experienced a lot of violence growing up. Death was not death and murder and violence and explosions. He was not naive to those things. A lot of people that he grew up with met violent ends due to drug use. Again, violence, criminality, and dysfunction. He writes with this dark humor, but never does he dismiss through the gravity of what he is memorializing. This is why this memoir felt unflinchingly authentic. Humor is an excellent tactic to discuss difficult things without watering them down. That's what true comedy is to me. The best comedians say what need to be said, but they make you laugh about it. He grew up where in an environment where gangsters were the role models. And for someone like him who was bookish and you know had aspirations beyond his environment, he felt this tension within his environment. At the same time again him having being bookish and valuing education and pursuing education.

[00:09:32]He's, you know, he is standing out from some of his counterparts or some of his peers who seem to be content with remaining in their insular, albeit challenging world. In Guan's Crossing, Copela expresses his desire as a youth again to move beyond his revi environment and experience life beyond this Brooklyn neighborhood. He does end up becoming a journalist. Let me make sure he what he he does end up becoming a journalist. I want to get it right.

[00:10:00]He's written for Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, Atlanta Magazines, Esquire, etc. New he was a Newsweek reporter. Eventually leaves Brooklyn for the South, but his memoir is still paying homage to a Brooklyn that has disappeared.

[00:10:23]And there is this overarching theme, and again, it's centered around this toxic river that is still stated as being fertile because what happens when your home is replaced into something that you no longer recognize.

[00:10:40]The entire memoir from beginning to end talks about environments and then when you go back to that environment, something has changed. Even talks about people that he knew that went and fought in the Vietnam War. And now if you were to go to that same place that experienced war in Vietnam, now there's Coca-Cola ads and billboards and it's like it no longer resembles the struggles that it went through.

[00:11:05]As I was reading Guanas Crossing, I felt like Copala was saying this Brooklyn that you see now, it was birthed from this. Let's not forget this. And this is the reality that came before the Brooklyn that you see now.

[00:11:22]And that Brooklyn was grungy.

[00:11:24]That Brooklyn, it was one of the roughest areas, if not the roughest areas that he grew up in in Brooklyn. There's even a quote where somebody says, "Oh, Vincent, even though he was bookish, there's another person in the book that he quotes says Brooklyn grew up in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods, if not the most dangerous neighborhood in Brooklyn." So, don't don't stub your nose at this man just because he's bookish.

[00:11:48]Remember your roots.

[00:11:50]That's all I'm going to say. This was just this I felt like this was a very straightforward memoir, but this to me was an addictive read. It is immaculately written. There were so many moments that I laughed out loud. I'm not It was his dark humor. Part of it because it was just so unflinchingly honest and he again he just wrote it in such a way where the environment is a character. Even though this is a memoir, the environment this Brooklyn leaps off the page whether you have ever step whether you ever experienced what he went through or not it in such a way it's tangible to the reader. The dialects he nails dialect of course he grew up he grew up with it reading one is crossing felt like going back in time because he just he just expertly brings it back to life. I feel like I'm repeating myself at this point. I could not put this down and unfortunately I wasn't able to use quotes because I have the advanced reader copy and you're not to quote from an advanced reader copy.

[00:12:54]But this was a five star read for me.

[00:12:56]Five out of five. That's how good it was. It was funny darkly so. It was there are parts of it that are uncomfortable to read. There are parts that are incredibly sad to read. He talks about the death of his mother. He talks about the death of his siblings, his brothers. He talks about the death of his father, father. His father was abusive. He talks about friends passing away, being killed, the effects of drug use. He talks about how his mother passed away from cancer. He actually won an award.

[00:13:28]He was awarded the William Allen White Gold Medal by the University of Kansas because of his story about his mother's battle against cancer. And he said he you can tell that he hypothesizes here that the environment that he grew up with because the environment was so toxic literally that it gave them cancer. He's actually a cancer survivor himself. And so this published in June of 2026. And that if you like a good memoir and you like unsanitized literature and and or you love a book that takes place in a New York City that no longer exists, this is going to be for you. It's just that good. Five out of five is going to be a top read of the year for me. It's gonna it's going to make it into my top reads of 2026. Hands down. I am very glad that um Henry Hol sent this to me because it was immaculate.

[00:14:26]That's all. Have you heard of this memoir?

[00:14:29]Um thoughts and comments below if you would be interested in picking it up. Also, feel free to like, subscribe, and follow me on Instagram where I get up to more book shenanigans. I post all of my book content there first. And yeah, I'll see you in the next one. Bye.