Robert General
Author | Screenwriter | Producer
The Face Behind the Words
Robert General is a Chicago-based author and screenwriter whose work explores identity, loyalty, and the quiet forces that shape lives long before they become legend.
A lifelong student of American history and dramatic craft, he draws on years of storytelling and performance to create emotionally layered, character-driven fiction.
Growing up in Chicago helped spark his fascination with the larger-than-life figures who shaped America’s past—and the choices that defined them. JUST… CALL ME AL is the first installment in the historical fiction series Capone Diaries.
“I’m a writer drawn to moments where people become who they will later deny having been.”
Before the headlines.
Before the myth.
Before the name meant anything beyond a Brooklyn street.
Alphonse Capone is fourteen years old and searching for a place to belong.
In turn-of-the-century Brooklyn, the Italian-American son of immigrants grows up in a neighborhood shaped by faith, loyalty, poverty, and the unwritten rules of survival. Surrounded by shifting alliances and narrow expectations, Al wants what any young man wants—to be seen, to matter, to rise beyond the limits placed on him before he has the chance to define himself.
But belonging carries a price.
Family demands one kind of devotion. The streets offer another. And America itself seems uncertain who it is willing to let in. As first love ignites and fractures, and as small choices begin to harden into character, Al discovers that identity is not inherited—it is negotiated. Each compromise feels minor. Each decision feels temporary. Yet together they begin shaping a future neither he nor the world can yet see.
Told in intimate first person, Just… Call Me Al is a historical fiction novella exploring the early life of Al Capone long before he became one of the most infamous figures in American history. Set against the backdrop of immigrant New York in the early 1900s, this coming-of-age story examines loyalty, ambition, fractured innocence, and the quiet moments that set history in motion.
The world will one day know the name Al Capone.
This is where it began.
Just… Call Me Al is the first installment in Capone Diaries.
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