For Adri-addicts and newcomers alike, Kiss Carlo is a delightfully retro read from novelist Adriana Trigiani, best-selling author of The Shoemaker’s Wife. Carlo (Harper, 544 pp., ***½ out of four stars) is a sprawling story that stretches from Italy to Philadelphia and New York to interweave the lives of hard-working Italian families making a living in the years after World War II.

Nicky Castone is a soldier home from the war who devotedly lives with and works for his Uncle Dom and Aunt Jo as a cab driver for their company. Engaged for seven long years to Peachy DePino, Nicky secretly spends his evening hours working at a struggling local theater run by its determined director, Calla Borelli.