Pietro Di Donato, novelist, biographer, and dramatist, was born in the tenement district of West Hoboken, New Jersey, the son of Annunziata and Domenic Di Donato, both of whom were born in Abruzzi, Italy. When Di Donato was twelve years old, his father, a bricklayer, was the victim of a construction accident. Because of faulty material used in a building project, the structure collapsed and buried Domenic Di Donato in the mortar and stone. Young Di Donato had to assume the burden of supporting his mother and her seven other children. Applying himself with determination to his father's trade, he matured rapidly in competition with skillful and experienced masons. A few years later when his mother died, Di Donato left school in the ninth grade but continued to attend night classes in engineering after days of heavy manual labor. With the cooperative consent and support of his brothers...