THE LONG ITALIAN GOODBYE by Robert L Benedetti - I laughed, I cried, I loved this book.

Joey is ten, an only child born of the Great Depression, weaned on the lustrous myths of his Italian neighborhood's gangster past. Just Off Oakley is a fictionalized memoir set in 1948 on Chicago's West Side. The neighborhood is a Tuscan village, which was transplanted whole from northern Italy thirty years before, complete with its food, its music, its traditions, and its strong sense of family. He doesn't know it yet, but this s the year his family will move away from the neighborhood, away from the teachers, priests, and bullies who teach and torment him, away from the black factory workers who first awaken his sense of social justice, away from his kissing cousin Benita and his first stirrings of sexual desire and romantic love. He will learn that life is not what he had imagined, and that even the joy of a kiss is forever tinged with mortality. RECIPES INCLUDED.

I laughed, I cried, I loved this book.
You do not have to be Italian(or a Chicagoan) to enjoy this trip down memory lane. "The Long Italian Goodbye" (for both the author's farewell to his childhood and because of the way all ethnic groups say good byes after family gatherings) is a loving look at one boy's growth from innocence to maturity. It is hilarious, tender, emotional and insightful -- the kind of book that everyone will enjoy. Benedetti's remembers boyhood adventures and discoveries, embarrassments and terrors, and love within the open-hearted bosom of an Italian family and neighborhood. You will miss a lot if you do not read this book.

For More 5 Star Reviews, Complete Product Review and The Lowest Prices Please Visit:
Buy THE LONG ITALIAN GOODBYE by Robert L Benedetti At The Lowest Price!