SOURCE: Barry, Iris. “The Raw Juice of Life.” New York Herald Tribune Books (29 September 1940): 2.

In the following positive review, Barry praises Fante's portrayal of childhood and family life in Dago Red.

There was a great deal of pleasure and excitement in meeting the Bandini family when they first introduced themselves in Mr. John Fante's Wait Until Spring, Bandini a couple of years or so ago. They are a vociferous bunch who wring the juice out of life instead of whiting it to come to them in hygienic cartons. Father is a bricklayer, a violent and passionate creature but not in actuality as passionate as Mother who—for all her gentleness and profoundly religious faith—is a tornado when roused. By now we have got to know the whole family intimately. They are in a sense, the antithesis of the Day family but they are just as characteristically American...