Trapped in a dysfunctional, Italian-American family in a small, poverty-ridden town, seventeen-year-old Dominic Molise clings to his deluded belief that he is destined to be a great baseball star.

Published posthumously in 1985, 1933 Was a Bad Year offers a superb slice of American life, both funny and sad, and a pungent taste of the Italian-American experience, exploring such issues as the gulf between immigrant parents and their American-born children.