By Karen DeMarco

An Italian-American boy growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950s is nothing out of the ordinary, but after befriending an African-American, the two youngsters find themselves in the center of a culture war.

Jack Bilello took his audience back to the age of the Brooklyn Dodgers and popularity of Coney Island to reveal the motivation behind his novel, I Still Love Joni James: A Boy Grows in Brooklyn as part of an Italian-American lecture series sponsored by the University.

“The past is the impulse for this novel,” Bilello said. “The past… it’s a lovely place to visit from time to time.”

Bilello, former chair of the history department at Lindenhurst High School, recalled the social pressures he faced as boy growing up in Brooklyn. When writing his book, Bilello said he not only had to remember his childhood but he also had to place himself in the mind of child.

“It was my last chance to be a boy,” he said. “To write a story about an Italian-American in the 1950s, I had to be that boy.”

Audience members, consisting mainly of senior citizens from the community, related to his stories. One man expressed his longing for the past.

“I grew up in a three-bedroom apartment in Flatbush. Everybody knew everybody. The beauty of that is gone,” an 80-year-old Brooklyn native said.