IT TAKES A LIFETIME TO LEARN TO LIVE: An Italian American Story of Coming Home, seeking family gynergy in Mama Italia

IT TAKES A LIFETIME TO LEARN TO LIVE: An Italian American Story of Coming Home
LIBBY CATALDI
Bordighera Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$20.00 paperback, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: It Takes a Lifetime to Learn How to Live is an intimate, multigenerational Italian American memoir immersed in the legacies of secrets, silence, and sacrifice of Southern Italy.

In 1915, Carmela leaves the remote village of Rotondella. Her daughter, Laura, grows up determined to sever the past in an effort to be fully American. But decades later, when her life collapses, Laura's daughter-the memoir's narrator-sets off alone to Italy in search of truth and belonging.

Her journey leads her back to her ancestral village, where she finds the open arms of family-and also uncovers the lingering shadows of the malocchio, omertà, rigid Catholicism, and a past of abject poverty, arranged marriage, patriarchal control, the Mafia, and a suspicion of sexual abuse.

She begins to understand how these forces shaped not only her grandmother's life, but also her mother's-and her own. By honoring the courage of the women who came before her, to risk and endure, she finds the grace to forgive, to heal, to make peace with her mother, and ultimately, to come home to herself.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I've been involved with multiple Italian-American families over the years, always enjoyably, mostly because they were descended from Southern Italian emigrants. I asked to read this book because I wanted to reinforce my good memories of the times I spent in the orbit of these clans.

Job done. Was much like hearing from The Beyond more of the stories I found so enjoyable. All the official patriarchy, all the real-life matriarchy, all the exciting stories of how the decision to come to the US was reached...or compelled...were all present and accounted for. It was Old Home Week, for me anyway, in all the most enjoyable ways.

Funny to call something "enjoyable" that starts in grinding, miserable poverty, misogyny, and class stratification and the social abuses the flow from that. It's more accurate to say that, these being ancestral stories told to the author then narrated to us removes immediacy from them. It's like any painful family memory. It smoothes out over time with retellings. Unlike to the person who lived it, we the audience know the ending, and it comes out fine.

Of course that's a failing of all memoirs. A person. like Author Cataldi, searching for family connections, has clearly ended up in a privileged position relative to those ancestors. It isn't suspenseful, so many people find memoir a bit of a snooze. I myownself enjoy the genre because I'm more invested in the "why" than the "what" as a rule. Why did Author Cataldi go seeking Rotondella and its denizens? Why was her need so powerful that she made an expensive and fairly extensive effort to investigate these origin stories?

I'm interested in her, not in some myth, in other words; I felt my curiosity assuaged, though it required some reading into spaces for that to happen.

Seeking the source of her family's gynergy was something that motivated Author Cataldi, and was powerful enough to compel me to go with her. I was very glad to have made the family's acquaintance.

COLORFUL PALATE: A Flavorful Journey Through a Mixed American Experience, drool-worthy memoir centered on food

COLORFUL PALATE: A Flavorful Journey Through a Mixed American Experience
RAJ TAWNEY
Empire State Editions
$18.95 paperback, $24.95 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5*of five

The Publisher Says: WINNER, 2024 BEST INDIE BOOK AWARD, CULINARY MEMOIR

WINNER, 2024 LIVING NOW BOOK AWARD, INSPIRATIONAL MEMOIR – MALE (BRONZE)

A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY & FOREWORD REVIEWS BOOK OF THE DAY • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2023 BY ZED BOOK CLUB & INDIA CURRENTS • LA WEEKLY BOOK PICK • RECOMMENDED BY BOOK RIOT & ELECTRIC LITERATURE

A timely self-examination of the “mixed” American experience featuring exclusive recipes and photographs from the author’s multicultural family.

As citizens continue to evolve and diversify within the United States, the ingredients that make up each flavorful household are waiting to be discovered and devoured. In Colorful Palate, author Raj Tawney shares his coming-of-age memoir as a young man born into an Indian, Puerto Rican, and Italian-American family, his struggles with understanding his own identity, and the mouthwatering flavors of the melting pot from within his own childhood kitchen.

While the world outside can be cruel and unforgiving, it’s even more complicated for a mixed-race kid, unsure of his place in the world. Turning to his mother and grandmother for guidance, Tawney assists in the kitchen, providing intimate moments and candor as he listened to the tales behind each culinary delicacy and the women who perfected it. Each lovingly prepared meal offered another opportunity to learn more about his extraordinary heritage. The ability to create delicious fare with his family wasn’t just a duty for the grand ladies who raised him; it was a survival tactic for navigating new and unknown cultures, not always willing to accept them at first or even a hundredth glance. As Tawney examines both himself and his loved ones through the formative stages of his life, from boyhood through adulthood, he begins to realize, through all of the chaos and confusion, just how “American” he actually was.

In this contemporary coming-of-age tale, Tawney tackles personal hot-button issues about race and identity through poignant, heartfelt moments centered on delicious meals. From succulent tandoori chicken to delectable arroz con habichuelas to scrumptious spaghetti and meatballs, Tawney shares his family recipes along with the intimate stories he overheard in the kitchen as he played sous chef to hundreds of recipes that not only span continents but also come with their own personal histories attached. Colorful Palate is a tale of the mixed experience, one of the millions that rarely get told, undefined by a single group or birthright and unapologetic about its lack of classification.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A Desi dad, a Puerto Rican/Italian mom...Raj is a bog-standard modern New Yorker. His family's families of origin are, well, not really compatible. His early life was spent with parents who were not effective at engagement with each other. This makes for a vacuum in a child's emotional growth. It did not, luckily, result in a food vacuum. His mother was a cook, and came from cultures with powerful culinary traditions.

Enter his grandmother and auntie. And, not coincidentally, delicious Desi food, Italian food, and Puerto Rican food as all points on his cultural compass were contributing to his maturing tastes. Not to mention he and his older brother were fully involved in the dominant US culture. Here's someone who came of age amid a lot of very, very powerful cultures, and has told us how this has molded him as a cook, and a person.

There are recipes in each chapter for dishes relevant to that chapter's substance, always at the end so easy to access. There are sixteen halftone illustrations to give you some extra flavor (!) of the author's life. I don't want you to thik it's a cookbook. I'd happily keep it in my cooking collection but I wouldn't suggest it for the cookbook collector.

You can definitely use the recipes, though, don't think they're pointless, ornamental ones. Just...more for a culture maven, one interested in society and the propagation of traditions in today's world, and anyone you know who is very interested in New York City, AND likes to adventure in the kitchen (but doably in the ingredients hunt!) will batten on this book.

Sample illustrations offered for your assessment:

Mom's parents being glam, 1957 at the Copacabana
Mom's Puerto Rican Mom and Italian Dad, 1957 wedding
Author and Mom, 1988
The author's immediate family, 1990
Author and maternal grandmother, 2018
Author and wife, Michelle, wedding day 2019

An American life, joined in progress, shared for our pleasure and our cultural broadening.

TWO MARI SANGIOVANNI LESBIAN ROM-COMS!

GREETINGS FROM JAMAICA, WISH YOU WERE QUEER
MARI SANGIOVANNI
Bywater Books
$9.99 ebook editions, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Marie Santora comes from a volatile Italian family. But when she inherits her grandmother’s estate and everyone turns nice and caring, Marie knows it’s time to hit the road to Los Angeles, but not before one final family vacation.

In Jamaica, Marie meets the woman who could change her life. But will she even talk to Marie after her family tells one too many of Marie’s secrets? Don’t miss this hilarious tale of lesbian love and family togetherness run amok.

Greetings from Jamaica is a runner-up for the first annual Bywater Prize for Fiction.

My Review: What happens when a rudderless, relationshipless, newly rich dyke decides to change her life, leave her hometown, and pursue the unattainable Object of Her Desire, a famous actress?

To put it mildly, hijinks ensue.

Marie hated her rich grandmother, as did anyone and everyone else who ever met the old bat. Unlike all the others in her family, though, Marie was honest in her dislike, and when the old lady kicks, Marie...the one honest person in the old lady's life...inherits.

This is an old-fashioned screwball comedy, a lot like Bringing Up Baby or The Awful Truth. It's a fast-paced, rollicking joy of a book to read.

Oh hell. Here I've got an interesting life and an adorable boyfriend (since become an ex, more's the pity), and I've gone and fallen in love with a lesbian.

Well, can you blame me? This particular lesbian, author of the tome named above, has a wicked sense of humor and a snarky eye for characters and a good sense of timing. She's written, in this her first novel, a laugh-out-loud funny slamming-doors sex farce set in an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica. I mean, really, go fight those odds! I'd fall in love with *Rush Limbaugh* under those circumstances!

(No I wouldn't, not a chance, but it's a good line so I used it anyway.)

Marie, our heroine, is in a miserable dead-end relationship with the once-gorgeous-to-her Jessica, a cold, cheating slime. Then one fine morning, Marie wakes up rich, with a legacy of $21 million - the ENTIRE ESTATE! - from her mean, evil grandmother, whose respect for Marie's honest dislike of her has paid off.

Marie's extended Italian-American family, predictably, goes into hyperdrive debating the use that they will make of (Marie's, and Marie's alone) money. This gets old, so she buggers off to Los Angeles to throw herself at actress Lorn Elaine, hoping to convince the said actress to be in the movie she's written. This fails spectacularly, and Marie slinks off to Jamaica with her entire clan, both to salve her screenwriterly wounds and to announce her decision about the division of the money. That was left to HER, mind.

So who shows up at the selfsame all-inclusive resort? C'mon, guess! Oh, all right...Lorn Elaine! With her mother in tow! It's now that the doors begin slamming, the sex (some pretty sticky stuff there!) begins not happening, and the entire cast runs around at warp speed trying to keep secrets and ending up telling lies.

If you're unsatisfied by the ending of this book, you're a prune-faced old moralizing killjoy. As for the humor quotient...well, the author's email is MariLaughs@cox.net. Go on, say it out loud. I'll wait.

Now, if that didn't make you laugh, don't read this book. Read one on how to get a sense of humor.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CAMPTOWN LADIES
MARI SANGIOVANNI
Bywater Books
$9.99 ebook editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Just when you thought it was safe to pitch your tent, the Santora family shows up. Lisa's taken over a rundown campground, baby sister Marie's been dumped (again!) by the actress, and the Santoras don't know the meaning of minding their own business. When the whole clan decides to fix things for their girls, it's a hilarious recipe for havoc. Camptown Ladies is the sequel to Greetings From Jamaica, Wish You Were Queer.

Mari SanGiovani lives the crazy Italian family lifestyle and writes about it like no one else.

My Review: Okay, see, it started like this. A few years ago, I was having a discussion with an old, old, old dyke of my acquaintance (I mean, born in the first Truman administration! And not dead yet!) about how gay men don't support lesbian writers and publishers of lesbian-themed books, and fewer straight men do this than straight women support gay smexy-time publishers. (I suspect ZERO straight men read gay smexy-time books, they're too skittish about the whole thing, poor lambs.) (BTW, when exactly did you dirty, dirty ladies start using men together as bubble-machine starter? I am shocked, shocked!)

Back to my story. So after a somewhat spirited exchange, containing the words "do not!" and "you big stupid!" rather more often than is seemly for two people whose combined age reaches well, well into triple digits, a challenge was issued: Each of us would buy from InsightOut (GLBTQ book club) a novel wholly and entirely about the other's preferred romantic partnerings. I bought Greetings from Jamaica, Wish You Were Queer.

Oh blessèd day. I snorted, howled, giggled, and generally made unseemly noises the entire time I was reading...make that devouring...the book. My then-love interest, the lamented Mr. Man, got so curious he read it too. He laughed, or the relationship would've ended sooner.

I sent the book to another friend, and she howled her way through it. She sherpa'd the sequel, recommending it to me, and keeping me abreast (!) of developments in Mari SanGiovanni's personal life. The fact that I'm finally reviewing the book is due to the fact that I need to get it in the mail to yet another friend who read the first one after several of us pummeled him into reading the first one (he's a straight boy, poor thing, so it took a wee tiny bit of coaxing). Having done so, he's fallen for Marie, Lisa, and Lorn just like the rest of us, and is looking forward to reading more about them.

Little does he know. (Close your eyes, Mark! Spoilers from here on out!)

Mari has made Marie's life easier in this book: She's broken up with Lorn, whose career as a movie star means more to her than her love for Marie, she's got money, and her lunatic out-there Italian family (a lot like several Italian families I know, all up in each other's business and as full of questions and demands as any police interrogator) go to work together. Marie gets to leave Lorn's orbit and lick her wounds, Lisa the older sister who's also a dyke gets to hit on the girls around and about, and so does Vince the youngest child, a straight boy (such a pity, that).

Vince does bring Erica, his girlfriend, into the picture.

Oh well, so much for family harmony. Erica falls in love with Marie, Marie goes back to Lorn, Erica leaves for Italy, and there's a romantic ending that made me mist over. Not before, however, I'd snorted and guffawed a lot. There's the clamdigging scene, with Lisa at her inappropriate best/worst. Think I hurt myself laughing, retching, laughing, and shuddering.

So anyway, off this book goes to its new daddy. I hope he hides it from his wife, there is a goodly amount of lesbian sex of the detailed sort in it. I skimmed. Fast. Now if I can just read this address...I find it improbable that he lives in "Olympus Mons, JI" since we haven't colonized Mars yet. I must've written the address down while still laughing about the clamdigging scene.