March 2027
152 pp., 5 1/2 x 8
Paper, $21.95
ISBN 978-1-60635-523-7
Pat the Lion on the Head
A Novel
1960s, Books, Cleveland, Fiction, Forthcoming, Immigrant, italian America, Regional InterestRaymond DeCapite
The third novel by Raymond DeCapite (1924–2009), Pat the Lion on the Head tells the story of Christy, an aging veteran who sweeps up at an outdoor fruit-and-vegetable market in 1960s Cleveland. Christy and his city are made real in the hands of DeCapite, an author whose devoted following is continually refreshed as he is discovered by new generations of readers. Through pitch-perfect banter with neighbors, bosses, workers, and family, Christy emerges as an indelible character forced ultimately to rely on his memories, his sense of self, and his appetite for life.
Raymond DeCapite, a native Clevelander, drew on his family and his community heritage as inspiration for his books. He knew the harder side of fighting for a living just as his characters did, having worked as a shipping clerk, a restaurant employee, a cashier, and a crane oiler. DeCapite was the recipient of an Ohioana Award for Literature, a Cleveland Critics Circle Award as a playwright, and a Cleveland Arts Prize for lifetime achievement. His novels The Coming of Fabrizze and A Lost King are also available from Kent State University Press.
Aaron Cometbus is a publisher, writer, and bookseller with a love for the small press.
Raymond DeCapite was a craftsman of fleet, lean, glinting, hilarious sentences, a noticer and verbal portraitist reminiscent of Saul Bellow, with an ear for American speech as finely tuned as Mark Twain’s. If a writer is a person on whom nothing is lost, DeCapite in his novels was the real thing.”—Salvatore Scibona, author of The End and The Volunteer
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“A small miracle of precise writing and nuanced detail.”—Thomas Baughman, As It Ought to Be Magazine
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“Through a masterful use of dialogue, it tells the tale of a man whose spirit has survived a hard life. Christy is an aging, lonely veteran who sweeps trash at the West Side Market, working hard when nobody’s looking, challenging his supervisors, befriending the merchants, and cutting out frequently to toss down shots as Sharkey’s Bar.”—Frank Green, Cleveland Free Times
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“Deeply affecting.”—Dennis Dooley, writing for the Cleveland Arts Prize in Literature