Italian American Writers on New Jersey

JENNIFER GILLAN is an associate professor at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts. With Maria Gillan, she has edited Unsettling America, Identity Lessons, and Growing Up Ethnic in America.MARIA MAZZIOTTI GILLAN is founder and executive director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College and director of the creative writing program at SUNY-Binghamton. Her latest book of poetry is Italian Women in Black Dresses.EDVIGE GIUNTA is an associate professor of English at New Jersey City University. She is the author of Writing with an Accent: Contemporary Italian American Women Authors.

• ForewordAcknowledgmentsIntroduction / Jennifer Gillan / Maria Mazziotti Gillan / Edvige GiuntaPART ONE Looking BackCombat Zones / Louise DeSalvoOcean City: Unto the Sons / Gay TaleseHoboken: Three Circles of Light / Pietro di DonatoTrenton / Grace CavalieriMontclair Memories: Personal Reflections and an Oral Interview / Marisa S. TrubianoLitania for My Mother's Hands / Edvige GiuntaGardener / Edvige GiuntaA Trip Home / David Della FeraIN DEPTH Paterson, the Alpha & the Omega1915: Mill Song / William Harry HardingRebel Girls / Jennifer GuglielmoWe Must Rebel! / Maria BarbieriTo the Women Workers / Maria RodaPaterson: 1913 / Josephine StifavoTime's End / Arturo GiovannittiDye House Strike, 1933 / Arturo MazziottiDowntown Paterson / Tom DeBlasio CarrollThe Tangerine Plymouth and the Gilded Cage / Rachel Guido de VriesPaterson, New Jersey / Carole MasoPublic School No. 18, Paterson, New Jersey / Maria Mazziotti GillanIn the Stacks at the Paterson Public Library / Maria Mazziotti GillanGrowing Up Italian in Paterson, New Jersey / Maria Mazziotti GillanPART TWOBlending In Scents / Maria LaurinoDaddy, We Called You / Maria Mazziotti GillanThird-Generation Hawthorne / Jennifer GillanRace Riot / Tom PerrottaDorissa / Daniela GioseffiStrike One: Seaside Heights, New Jersey / Annie Rachele LanzillottoLyndhurst Memories / Ed SmithQuench a Plant's Thirst / Edvige GiuntaSt. Therese / Edvige GiuntaNevertheless, It Moves / Susanne AntonettaPART THREE Crossing BridgesHungry Dog / Agnes RossiLetter from New Jersey / Diane di PrimaOn the Beaches of Wildwood, New Jersey / Mary Ann ManninoJune Wednesdays / Mary Ann ManninoSuburban Backyards / June AvignoneJersey Tomato Wars / Mary Ann Castronovo FuscoI Check Other / Carla GuerrieroMiracle Baby: A Boy Named Phyllis / Frank DeCaroClass Quartet / Janet ZandyIN DEPTH Interstate Commerce, New York & New Jersey Bound Moving to Wood-Ridge / Bill ErvolinoPizza / Michele LinfanteSnowball / Rosette CapotortoPassaic River Crossing / Flavia AlayaLincoln Tunnel: Jersey Bound Salvatore / Amico M. ButtaciSummer Job / Frank FinalePART FOUR Changing DirectionLiberating Memory / Janet ZandyCircolo / Michele LinfanteBald / Loryn LipariToday Your Name Is Mary / Carole MasoCarlton Fredricks and My Mother Maria / Mazziotti GillanGreenwood Lake / Diane di PrimaElizabeth / Susanne AntonettaContributors

Italian American Writers on New Jersey presents a part of America that is a state of mind, body, and soul."- (Home News Tribune) Shows how historical particularity crafts the individual. It is not only Italian American Writers on New Jersey; it is writers on writing, on living, on suffering, triumphing, spanning the gap of society, and coming out whole. (The Montserrat Review) This anthology focuses on ethnicity and gender, but it is also concerned with working class culture and literary history. . . . there's enough of interest here to reward most any reader. (Trenton Times) Thanks to The Sopranos, most Americans think New Jersey is populated by illiterate thugs who can barely spell their own names. Helping to balance the scales is this new anthology of poetry, fiction, memoirs, and stories that presents New Jersey life through the eyes of cultured and gifted Italian American writers. (Italian America)