Under a Black Star

The pages within this book were penned in fulfillment of a deathbed promise to a long-suffering mother. They are the work of a novice. But it struck me as I read them that this is the works strength. One of the attractions of the memoir form is that there are often rich ironies to be tilled in looking back. In this true account, born of a bygone era and steeled in the stoic immigrant ethos of a previous generation, a poor, barely literate Italian mother betrayed in marriage and left to fend for