From the canals of Long Beach to the waters of Venice, and on to the British Virgin Islands—one man sets out to build something no one else believes in.
One Pakistani fishing boat. Two broke kids. The birth of gondola culture in America.
The American Gondolier
Long Beach, California, 1982. Two friends. One impossible idea.
When Mike O'Reilly spots a waterlogged Pakistani fishing boat rotting in a neighbor's rose garden, most people see junk. He sees the beginning of something. David Orlando—Mike's oldest friend—sees every flaw in the hull and every reason it won't work. He says yes anyway. What follows is the story of how two young men with no investors, no permits, no experience with Italian anything, and more belief than sense built a gondola business on the canals of Naples, California—and then kept going to Austin and Nashville and on to the BVI.
The American Gondolier is a novel inspired by true events: a story about friendship and the stubborn kind of optimism that refuses to quit. It's about the people who show up—the crew that sands and hammers and stays for the beer, the attorney who doesn't lose, the neighbor who gives you her boat for free and just asks for a ride when it's done. It's about what happens when a small idea refuses to stay small, and two men discover that the question was never whether it would work—it was how far they were willing to take it.
A story that needed to be told—raw, real, and impossible to put down.— Terry H.
David Black built something no one believed in. This book makes you believe in it too.— Rose B.
Part business saga, part love letter to the water. A remarkable debut.— Chris A.
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