The Streets Are Just Too Long: North End Stories
In The Streets Are Just Too Long: North End Stories, Ralph Indrisano weaves a vivid tapestry of Boston’s North End in the 1960s and 1970s, a tight-knit Italian-American enclave pulsing with passion, pain, and resilience. Through characters inspired by real North Enders—rebels, dreamers, and survivors—Indrisano captures a community where love and violence, loyalty and loss, coexist in a Felliniesque dance. Infused with the wisdom of Socrates, the poetry of Shakespeare, and the raw energy of street life, these stories transform gritty realities—addiction, poverty, and the struggle for identity—into timeless reflections on human worth. From the feasts of North Street to the stoops of the Haunty, this collection honors a neighborhood’s heart, where every story, no matter how broken, shines with the weight of a classic.
Ralph Indrisano
While working as a carpenter, Ralph Indrisano was given a copy of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov - which changed his life. In that moment, he knew he wanted to one day write something which could improve even a small corner of the world. Twenty years later, in the Wakefield Library just north of Boston, he discovered the stories he wanted to tell. The Streets Are Just Too Long: North End Stories is his first book.