Photo: Yann Gamblin/Paris Match via Getty Images (1996)
Sample of authors
Puzo, Mario
Mario Gianluigi Puzo was an American author born in a slum known as Hell’s Kitchen on Manhattan, New York. His parents were both immigrants from Pietradefusi in the Avellino province, Italy. He had a difficult upbringing, especially after his father abandoned the family at the beginning of the 1930s and left his wife to care for their seven children on her own. Puzo won grants so he could attend C...
Photo: David Shankbone (2009) CC BY 3.0
Sample of authors
Vidal, Gore
The American novelist and essayist Gore Vidal was born at West Point, New York. He was originally christened Eugene Vidal, but in his teens he changed his first name to his maternal grandfather’s surname. Gore Vidal was the only child of the pilot Eugene Luther Vidal and his wife, Nina S. Gore, an actress. He was not close to either. His parents were divorced when Vidal was ten, and although he m...