Saturday, July 3, 2010

Half Italian

American by birth, half Italian by blood, that's me. Half Italian, the book, is a collection of events spanning the 20th century with both my Italian-American and Italian-European families, who were farmers. Accordingly, some of the events take place on farms.

The stories have mainstream connection through family life, and humor. The humor is.....unique. How many kids have a grandmother who never saw a banana, mustard, or a fruit pie until adult age in America, and threw them all out the window of her train because she thought they were spoiled? How many kids witness their grandmother flush her dentures down the toilet, later retrieved from a septic tank? Unique. A recipe follows each chapter.

My father passed away in 2006, and after that my view of time expanded. Half Italian began with two thoughts typed into my computer. Then, one Saturday morning, I sat down to expand on those thoughts and the words flew.

Memoirs are difficult to sell; my challenge is to find an agent (and publisher) who, as I, believe in this project.

For the record, my mother is the full-blood Italian.

-PJ

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