Eat Now; Talk Later: 52 True Tales of Family, Feasting and the American Experience Spotlight Post

Hello blog readers! I am happy to be spotlighting a very interesting book today!

 

TITLE: Eat Now; Talk Later: 52 True Tales of Family, Feasting and the American Experience.

 

In 52 bite-size stories, the book tells the story of my grandparents, Desolina and Antonio Vescovi, two immigrants from peasant villages where life hadn't changed for 200 years. But this isn’t the over-told immigrant-made-good story. When they came to the United States, my grandparents passed through a time tunnel. Gone were oxen and plows; the annual excitement of the slaughter of the family pig; polenta for breakfast, lunch, and supper; and a house heated in winter by wood and by animal stalls below. In modern America, they found themselves puzzled by banking, supermarkets, college degrees, airplane travel, and the nuclear family. Written by a grandson who knew them well, these stories are hilarious, bittersweet, and universal. You don't have to be Italian to enjoy this combination biography/memoir. At 150 pages, a great summer read.

You can read an excerpt and see some photos and recipes at http://www.eatnowtalklater.com.

 

 

 

 

BIO

James Vescovi’s stories about his eccentric grandparents have appeared singly in The New York Times, Alimentum Journal: The Literature of Food,Creative Nonfiction, Newsday, Gazetta Italiana, and various anthologies. He is also author of The USS Essex and the Birth of the American Navy (Adams; 1999; 13,000 copies sold). His fiction and essays been published in Midwestern Gothic, The New York Observer, the Georgetown Review, and Natural Bridge. He teaches at high school English and lives in New York with his wife and three children.