Stella, Carmelo 1956- (Charlie Stella)

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STELLA, Carmelo 1956- (Charlie Stella)

PERSONAL:

Born June 1, 1956, in New York, NY; married; wife's name Ann Marie; children: (first marriage) Nicole; (third marriage) Charles, Dustin. Education: Attended Minot State College and Hofstra University; Brooklyn College, B.A. (political science), 1982.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New Jersey. Agent—c/o Carroll & Graf Publishers, 245 West 17th St., 11th Floor, New York, NY 10011-5300.

CAREER:

Writer. Worked as a football coach, window cleaner, and word processor.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Eugene Schneider Memorial Short-Story Award; Abraham Kraditor Memorial Award for Political Science, Brooklyn College, 1982.

WRITINGS:

Eddie's World, Carroll & Graf Publishers (New York, NY), 2001.

Jimmy Bench-Press, Carroll & Graf Publishers (New York, NY), 2002.

Charlie Opera, Carroll & Graf Publishers (New York, NY), 2003.

Author of several plays, including Coffee Wagon, Mr. Ronnie's Confession, and Double or Nothing.

SIDELIGHTS:

Carmelo "Charlie" Stella grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and the city's street life serves as the milieu for his writings. Stella played football in high school and attended Minot State College in North Dakota on a football scholarship. His greatest influence at Minot, however, was Dave Gresham, the English teacher who sparked his interest in literature and writing. Stella also attended Hofstra University in New Jersey, where he won a short-story writing award, but did not earn a degree. It was not until later, while he was washing windows and coaching football, that he decided to return to school and ultimately graduated from Brooklyn College. He worked as a word processor and then became what he describes as a "street guy." It is from these nearly two decades of associating with small-time operators and gamblers that Stella draws in writing his fiction.

Library Journal's Craig L. Shufelt wrote that "despite a slow start, Stella's debut picks up enough steam to distinguish itself from the scores of other crime novels." In Eddie's World protagonist Eddie Senta, like Stella, works as a word processor and is the author of a book. Eddie is also a bookie with a history, and he is heading into a mid-life crisis. His much-younger wife wants to have a baby, and he is struggling in trying to parent his teenage son. He could buy a Corvette, but he decides instead to take part in one last burglary, for kicks and the quick score, but also to help his friend Tommy Gaetani. The supposedly easy job gets messy: Tommy winds up dead, and Eddie, who is suspected of a triple murder, is chased by the police, the real killer, and the FBI. "Stella throws in Russian mobsters, ex-cons, federal agents, Mafia figures, local cops and gangbangers, all of whom convulse Eddie's world," wrote a Publishers Weekly reviewer.

In reviewing the book for Romantic Times online, Toby Bromberg called it "a fast-paced novel peopled with quirky characters." A Kirkus Reviews contributor noted that Eddie's World is "fresh, fast, and darkly funny. A sure-footed debut from a writer with a spare, no-nonsense prose style who can make you like characters you think you shouldn't."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2001, review of Eddie's World, p. 1458; September 15, 2002, review of Jimmy Bench-Press, p. 1357.

Library Journal, November 15, 2001, Craig L. Shufelt, review of Eddie's World, p. 98; November 15, 2002, Craig L. Shufelt, review of Jimmy Bench-Press, p. 103.

Publishers Weekly, November 5, 2001, review of Eddie's World, p. 43; October 28, 2002, review of Jimmy Bench-Press, p. 54.