ABSTRACT
The “case of the house” means to suggest a crime, a pathology, something that demands investigation. The theory is simple. Contrary to the testimony of maps, there is such a place as Italian America. It is to be found in Italian houses in America. Lares and penates are what make an American house Italian American, and people have innumerable examples to choose from because anything that bears the mark of Italy can become a household god in Italian America. Aeneas, the successful immigrant, owed his prosperity to pietas, veneration for ancestors so profound that he left Troy actually carrying his father on his back. In the tradition of Italian American novels, the enterprise of the patriarch in Italian America cannot escape its own inappropriateness, and it founders in failure and desecration, the very things that it aims to repress. Henry Molise, the narrator, tells people from the outset that this paternal empire did not materialize.
