Linda Schifino

Broschiertes Buch

Neighborhood Girl

A Memoir of Loss, Longing, and Letting Go

Beschreibung

Linda Schifino's beloved childhood neighborhood is gone-apartment buildings, familiar stores, and family homes demolished, the church that nurtured three generations of her family now a parking lot, family members and neighbors long dead. The passage of time has become her antagonist. Faced with heartbreaking loss, Schifino hoards treasured family memories, stories, and customs. When her son asks if it's okay to bring a ham to Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes, Schifino fears the beginning of the dismantling of her family traditions. Neighborhood Girl explores timeless human themes of family, place, and loss. The story begins in an Italian American enclave of Pittsburgh in the 1950s, a loving and close-knit community that consisted of small clapboard houses and apartments over grocery stores and butcher shops, where generations of families celebrated saint's day festivals with brass bands and homemade sausage sandwiches. Chapters introduce characters such as Mim, a beloved aunt whose botched abortion left her childless; Baw Baw, the author's great-grandfather who drank too much and sang too loud; and the guys who sat on the stoop and provided six-year-old Linda with a numbers running gig that taught her the distinction between them and her adoring, yet overprotective father. Poignant and open-hearted, Neighborhood Girl is an absorbing family story that invites the reader along as the author sifts through fragile memories like an archeologist in an effort to preserve a family legacy. An affable and sincere narrator, Schifino's memoir is at once heartbreaking, humorous, and engaging.

Autor

Linda Schifino is a writer living in Pittsburgh. She holds a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Duquesne University and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Carlow University where she is also Professor Emerita of Communication. Linda is a long-time writer with Madwomen in the Attic, a diverse community of serious women writers who offer each other support and who share in their love of the written word. She also teaches writing through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.As the eldest member of her immediate family, Linda is the keeper of family memories and traditions. When she retired from full-time academia, Linda turned to writing essays about growing up in an Italian American enclave in Pittsburgh in the 1950s to preserve her family's memories and as a salve to her painful loss of people and community. These essays later developed into Neighborhood Girl. Linda's current writing project has taken her to a small village in southern Italy to investigate her ancestry and the mysteries surrounding the life of her maternal great-grandmother. Schifino has had essays published in Adelaide Magazine, Avalon Literary Journal, Brevity Blog, Northern Appalachia Review, The Write Launch, and elsewhere.When she's not writing, Linda spends time in her garden, her Latin cardio dance class, and reading. She also loves playing with her granddaughter, Alex, and exploring her Squirrel Hill neighborhood with her dog, Lizzie.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Brown Posey Press
• Seitenzahl: 160
• Erscheinungstermin: 22. August 2023
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 10mm
• Gewicht: 270g
• ISBN-13: 9798888191248
• Artikelnr.: 68714418