Christ in Concrete

“Ah, bella casa mio. Where my little freshets of blood and my good woman await me. Home where my broken back will not ache so. Home where midst the monkey chatter of my piccolinos I will float off to blessed slumber with my feet on the chair and the head on the wife’s soft full breast.” 

Home has a special place for poor workers like Geremio. It is the one place they can escape after a long day of work where Job cannot get to them and the boss cannot yell at them. Home is where they can indulge in the simple pleasures of children and wives and ease their aching backs.

“I tell you, son of Geremio shall never lay bricks! Paulie mine will study from books—he will be the great builder!” 

Geremio has aspirations for Paul, and he thinks that he will be a great builder or architect someday. Geremio lays bricks in the hopes that Paul will never have to, but in a cruel irony of fate, Paul ends up taking on the same Job that his father despises. This outcome upends the idea that immigrant children can escape the yoke of poverty.

“My children will dance for me someday […] and in the American style….” 

This line calls back to Geremio’s earlier desire for his children to became to assimilate to American life by dancing in the “American style.” In a cruel irony, di Donato recalls this line when the government official refuses to offer Paul any compensation because his father wasn’t a citizen. The re-insertion of this passage at this moment in the book suggests that it will not be as easy as he imagined for his children to achieve the American dream.

“Man of God?—Man of God? […]bursting gut and sausage-in-mouth!” 

One underlying theme is the hypocrisy and failure of the Church to live up to its mission to give alms or charity to the poor. Father John refuses to seek any aid for Paul’s starving family, leading dame Katarina to question his reputation as a Man of God who eats with a full belly while others go hungry.

“The votive light burned its delicate fire of devotion beneath the crucifix, and in the dark dust of dreams came a vast pressure to blanket the senses of mother and son; a force coming from afar and stealing their breathing, a sucking breath upon their own. And through their breathless world a consciousness told them that […]the living do not die.” 

Prayer beneath the crucifix from which Jesus once hung is a daily activity in the family’s home. Paul wonders if they will be able to rejoin his deceased father Geremio in death and end their earthly suffering. Then an unknown force—perhaps Geremio’s spirit, perhaps God—says they must go on living. 

“He had heard the paesanos whisper and then roar, and it was about men and women.” 

The need for sex—and the presence of sexuality—is an ever-present theme in this book. During this era, men and women occupy different spheres of life—men in the workforce and women in the home—except when they come together for lovemaking.

“I’ll bet they like America. It’s the best country in the world.” 

Paul innocently says this to his friend, Louis, who does not respond. Paul has inherited Geremio’s belief in the American dream of prosperity and cannot comprehend that Louis—as a Jewish refugee who experiences anti-Semitism—might not feel similarly.

“People, poor people. And their faces pulled at Paul’s heart. Their eyes and lips said, we are the battered poor, poor stupid poor, we are the maimed and crippled and bandaged and blind workers who cannot speak and are led and pushed through these corridors like subway corridors and into chambers where we understand nothing.” 

In this book, the poor are the mercy of those who are better educated and better dressed than they are. Their hunger and their need distinguish them from the more wealthy who do not need to work for their daily meals through backbreaking labor. The immigrant poor are especially helpless due to their lack of fluency in English.

“I didn’t kill him.” 

Mister Murdin utters this line in the courtroom after dismissing Annunziata’s pleas for help. He demonstrates the callous attitude of the corporations to their worker. The corporation does not care about the welfare of its workers or their family; it only cares about the worker’s productivity in generating profit.

“O God above, what world and country are we in

After the lawyers sneer at his family and they receive no compensation for Geremio’s death, Paul gets his first inkling that the world is not quite fair and that America is not quite the promised land he and Geremio thought it was.

“Did they soar about their comrade-worker Christ, or did worker return to Job and press ghostly self against scaffold and wall?” 

The line between the dead and the living is often blurred in this book. One might think that death would free Geremio and others from Job, but in this passage, Job continues to torture their spirits even while they’re dead. 

“Paul, the job is not freedom. Your wonderful brain is freedom.” 

Louis emotionally tries to persuade Paul that his worth lies not in Job, but in knowledge. Job will not set him free, but a good education can. Unfortunately, Paul must continue to Job for the sake of his family. 

“Push into it, my children, for this is the money wall

This short bit of dialogue shows how the workers are viewed as commodities whose main purpose is to build the “money wall” that keeps the corporations fat with cash.

“This is the fresh stink of Job, this is the eight-houred daily duel, this is the sense of red and grey, and our bodies are no longer meat and bone of our parents, but substance of Job.” 

This passage underscores how Job wholly consumes the workers through harsh daily labor, making them feel as if their very bodies are owned by Job.

“No poet would be there to intone meter of soul’s sentence to stone, no artist upon scaffold to paint the vinegary sweat of Christian in correspondence with red brick and gray mortar, no composer attuned to the screaming movement of Job and voiceless cry in overalls.” 

The author alludes to how the lives of workers on these sites are often not documented or seen as important by the artists that are esteemed by high society. Instead, di Donato takes on that role of observer and documentarian by writing this book.

“I have lost my small place in world, and it is not in the heart of men to know this hunger within, as even I do not love Luigi for his fate.” 

After losing his mobility and being unable to work, Luigi—who feels his purpose is linked to Job—is shattered and his sense of his manhood tarnished. 

“Ah—the wife—a squishy squid that veritably swallows one whole…!” 

Thoughts of women provide a necessary distraction for these men from the harsh work of Job. Those with wives particularly associate their wives’ comforts with home—the antithesis of Job.

“Sturdy spines bent forward, molars clamped, horny hands clutched jug handle, wine rivered, knees pressed together, and lust spread as scalding enema in bowels.” 

This passage indicates di Donato’s effective literary style, which shows the men consumed with lust even as they work. This depiction reinforces the idea of what it means to be a man while underlying how Paul is still a boy—uncomfortable with a man's sexuality—despite the hard labor he participates in.

“He was proud that God had given him hand, back and eye to bring home food, proud that he earned almost as much as the thick-wristed men, proud that he studied blueprints and construction, proud that he felt beauty in his form and soul, proud of his wonderful family.” 

At this point, Paul still feels a great sense of pride that he can provide for his family with own two hands, illustrating the central concept of manhood in this novel. He is not yet angry about the suffering that Job imposes on him. 

“At quitting whistle he decided that he would go work with Nicky on the big steel job. Striding along the street he raised his brown hand to his nose and smelled it. It was like a man’s.” 

This declaration that Paul is a man and will go take a big new job working on the skyscraper marks the latest step in Paul’s evolution to manhood. In his eyes, he is no longer a child and does not need to depend on the graces of his godfather to work.

“We are Italians! Know you what that means? It means the regal blood of terrestrial man. Richer than the richest, purer than the finest, more capable than an-y! an-y race breathing under the stellar rays of night or the lucent beams of day!” 

Although they are widely discriminated against and heavily impoverished, the Italian immigrants retain great pride in their culture, heritage, and faith. This becomes evident during the wedding festivities of Cola and Luigi when one of Paul’s Italian neighbors in the tenement utters this line.

“Sharp against sky’s light light blue concave stood the architectural stance of buildings—now tall and pointed—now squat and square—now sandstone buff in ornate rolls—now with jail-bar severity—now ugly—and never beautiful.” 

This description of the skyscraper as ugly contrasts with Paul’s previous perceptions of the building as exciting and thrilling. This shift in perception occurs after his godfather’s death, when Paul becomes acutely aware of all the suffering that goes into making these buildings.

“I was cheated, my children will also be crushed, cheated…Ahh, not even the Death can free us, for we are […] Christ in concrete.” 

This quote breaks down the idea perpetuated by the Cripple and Annunziata that Geremio has found peace and happiness in death. It also bluntly puts to and end the lie of the American dream, which Geremio bought into and believed would bring a better life for himself and his children.