Book review by G. Cipolla, Professor of Literature and Modern Languages, St. John University, Jamaica, NY, in Sicilia Parra, newsletter of Arba Sicula, Volume XVII, No. 2, Winter 2005

The story of Sicilians in America is beginning to be told.  Across the country Sicilians are picking up pen and paper, … One is a street wise tough young man from Ybor City who grew up to become a doctor,… Being Sicilian in America is indeed a fact that cannot be brushed off or simply ignored. This is something that the authors themselves gladly admit in the subtitle of their work. The first book is called in fact Stranger in the Barrio: Memoir of a Tampa Sicilian. It is the autobiography of Frank Urso, a retired medical doctor and Professor of Pathology who grew up as the son of Sicilian cigarmakers in Ybor City Florida;… Frank Urso is the poet who does not simply tell you the story of his life. He tells it with style sculpting phrases with a fine chisel that remain with you long after you have finished the book. Dr. Urso is a medical doctor who should have devoted his life to writing for he clearly has the imagination and skills to succeed. Dr. Urso's book revealed a whole world of Sicilians I knew nothing about. I had never even heard of Ybor City, let alone the fact that Sicilians represented a good portion of the population of the city. It is through books of this nature that the multifaceted story of Sicilian immigration will be told.