[Bloodbrothers is a] tough, dramatic novel about an Italian-American working-class family and a son's attempts to break out of a ruinously confining value system centered on mawkish or brutal (nothing in-between) images of masculinity…. The style is strictly "naturalistic," the momentum energetic, the mood at once gritty, funny, and quite horrendous. The novel's considerable force also derives from its authenticity: Price clearly knows what he is talking about, both the surface detail and the feelings roiling just beneath. He is sharply observant of these, understanding, not patronizing. (p. 46)