Synopses & Reviews
In her no-holds-barred family memoir, controversial scholar-critic Louise DeSalvo breaks the traditional silence around life for an Italian American girl coming of age in working-class Hoboken, New Jersey. Upon first publication, DeSalvo’s memoir–which sifts through painful memories of childhood incest, a sister’s suicide, a mother’s psychotic depression, and a father’s violent rage–enjoyed wide acclaim as an instant classic of the genre, written in "one of the most refreshing feminist voices around."—San Francisco Chronicle
Marketing Plans:
East Coast readings
Extensively promoted with new anthology Taste This: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Identity
Louise DeSalvo is professor of English at Hunter College. She has published thirteen books, including the acclaimed Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work.
Review
"Gripping in its parade of detail and profusion of stories. . . An extremely readable book."Kirkus Reviews
"DeSalvo's method feels philosophically right. Life is not a teleology; it is chaotic, promiscuous in its associations. . . she is a witty, graceful, sensuous,
a natural performer."-- Newsday
"DeSalvo meditates and relfects, weaving narrative from incident and insight....De Salvo investigates the literal and metaphorical gaps in her background in The ‘unlikely narrative of how a working-class Italian girl became a critic and writer.'"-- The Chicago Tribune
"Written in the present tense, in fairly short sections that preserve the immediacy of her
memories, the book skips around in time, organized more by topics than chronology. Throughout, the narrative pushes forward impatiently...conveying to the reader the urgency of her (DeSalvo's) needs. . .Most of this is pretty serious stuff. Luckily DeSalvo has a healthy sense of humor and an earthy streak. The sections on food and clothes are both hilarious and touching."--The San Francisco Chronicle
"Her (De Salvo's) clarity of insight and expression makes this an impressive achievement."-- Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
Born to immigrant parents during World War II and coming of age during the 1950s, DeSalvo finds herself rebelling against a script written by parental and societal expectations. In her revealing family memoir, DeSalvo sifts through painful memories to give voice to all that remained unspoken and unresolved in her life: a mother's psychotic depression, a father's rage and violent rigidity, a sister's early depression and eventual suicide, and emerging memories of childhood incest. At times humorous and often brutally candid, DeSalvo also delves through the more recent conflicts posed by marriage, motherhood, and the crisis that started her on the path of her life's work: becoming a writer in order to excavate the meaning of her life and community.
In Vertigo, Louise DeSalvo paints a striking picture of the easy freedom of the husband and fatherless world of working-class Hoboken, New Jersey, the neighborhood of her early childhood, where mothers and children had an unaccustomed say in the running of their lives while men were off defending their country, but were jolted back into submission when World War II ended. Hoboken was not a place where girls were encouraged to develop their minds, or their independent spirits, yet it is that tenement-dotted city with its pulse and energy, wonderful Italian pastry, and sidewalk roller-skating contests, and not suburban Ridgefield, where the family moves when Louise is seven, that claims Louise's heart.
Written with an honesty that is as rare as it is unsettling, Vertigo also speaks to broader truths about the impact of ethnicity, class, and gender in American life. Offering inspiration and a healthy dose of subversion, this personal story of a writer's life is also a study of the alchemy between lived experience and creativity, and the life-transforming possibilities of this process.
Synopsis
A scholar's memoir of growing up and the powerful forces that shaped her as a woman and a writer; "her story will inspire all women" (Library Journal).
In this honest and outspoken reflection on her childhood, Louise DeSalvo explores the many ways literature saved her, both emotionally and practically. Born to Italian immigrants during World War II, DeSalvo takes readers back to the emotional chaos of her 1950s girlhood in New Jersey, growing up with her authoritative, distant father, her depressed mother, and a sister who later committed suicide. Reading and research were an anchor to her then, and widened her choices about her future in ways that weren't otherwise available to girls of that era.
A Virginia Woolf scholar, DeSalvo wrote a ground-breaking study on the impact of childhood sexual abuse on the reclusive writer. Here, she mines her own early days--and her adolescent obsession with Hitchcock's Vertigo--in an attempt to give her own life's path "some shape, some order."
Publisher's Weekly said, "Her clarity of insight and expression make this memoir] an impressive achievement," and the San Francisco Chronicle proclaimed, "DeSalvo has one of the most refreshing feminist voices around."
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. xxvi-xxix).
Synopsis
In her no-holds-barred family memoir, controversial scholar-critic Louise DeSalvo breaks the traditional silence around life for an Italian American girl coming of age in working-class Hoboken, New Jersey. Upon first publication, DeSalvo's memoirwhich sifts through painful memories of childhood incest, a sister's suicide, a mother's psychotic depression, and a father's violent rageenjoyed wide acclaim as an instant classic of the genre, written in "one of the most refreshing feminist voices around."-
San Francisco ChronicleMarketing Plans:
East Coast readings
Extensively promoted with new anthology Taste This: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Identity
Louise DeSalvois professor of English at Hunter College. She has published thirteen books, including the acclaimed Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work.
Synopsis
Grippingabout how 'a working-class Italian American girl' became a critic and writer.--Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Louise DeSalvo is the award-winning author of thirteen books, including Breathless, Adultery, Writing as a Way of Healing, and Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work, and co-editor of The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture. She is professor of English at Hunter College, City University of New YorkEdvige Giunta is associae professor of English at New Jersey City University. She is the author of Writing with an Accent: Contemporary Italian American Women Authors and coeditor of The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women on Food and Culture.