Sometimes I Dream in Italian

One of the early reviewers of this book complained bitterly that his rosy overview of the Italian way of life had been shattered.Well,mine has been too! I'd always envied the way Italian families seem to be so close and totally bonded,and even recently in New York,a large family group at an Italian restuarant for lunch,brought out the old pangs of jealousy again. Having got that off my chest,I would wholeheartedly recommend "Sometimes I Dream in Italian" as a quick,funny read and a bit of an eyeopener into "real" Italian life at home. Sisters Angel and Lina are growing up in a poor household where their mother is obsessed with cleaning and keeping up appearances and their father wants no more from life than a nap after work with his shoes off.The girls compensate for their drab lives by fantasising about growing up to be rich and famous "Blonde" movie stars.Mama continually embarrasses them in public with her Old Country ways and mean attitude with money,so the girls create their own fantasy world where families are perfect.

. . . but if you are, all the better. Fortunately, my own Italian-American family has always been the huggy, kissy kind and not the dark one portrayed by Rita Ciresi. Nevertheless, I know these people, their idiosyncrasies, the fact that Mama always knows best, the fact that Papa puts the roof over your head and doesn't need to do anything else. Readers will laugh out loud at the blatant humor of a home where furniture kept under plastic wraps is the height of elegance, where a Rey Corono cigar band ring from your father is life's most precious treasure, and where no one else can embarrass you on a trip like good ole Mama Mia. Whether recalling the desire to "americanize" your name or listening to the music of "Celeste Aida" while doing housework, this book is a nostalgic look back at not only what it's like to grow up in an Italian-American home, but in any ethnic home. Ciresi peppers the writing with lots of Italian words and phrases (how many times these same words came tumbling from my own grandparents' lips) and portrays the characters with a poignancy that puts the reader immediately into the story and into the lives of Angel and Lina. These two sisters want more than anything else to escape their heritage, but find as adults that it is the memories of it that bind them forever.Heartwarming, heart-wrenching, and heartfelt---this book is a trip down memory lane for many, a chance to find out what it's like to grow up Italian for those not lucky enough to be able to do it in their real life.

Rita Ceresi's breakthrough novel, "Sometimes I Dream in Italian" is so good, true and heartbreakingly trenchant that I believe it will be favorably compared with the extraordinary skill Rebecca Wells demonstrated in "Little Altars Everywhere." Written in two parts, the first focusing on the lives of frustrated sisters Rita and Angel Lupo and the latter revealing the terrible truths of their adult lives, the novel's humorous, satirical observations on growing up Italian-American stand in harsh counterpoint to the anguished adult lives the two sisters now live. Make no mistake about it; Ciresi is drop-dead funny in her recounting how desperately unhappy Angel is to be stuck in a family whose immigrant father's unquestioning acquiesence in a dull blue-collar life is matched only by the stench of his feet after he has removed his shoes after a day's labor and whose mother is so controlling, so unwilling to question her role or her family's dreary, predictable existence that she packs suppositories on a church-sponsored journey to the Statue of Liberty. After all, her mother reasons, you just never know what might happen.Growing up yearning to be a true American, with a real American name and real American possibilities consumes Angel, who not only must contend with her parents' suffocating adherence to what she considers to be an alienating ethnic identity but most also deal with the reality that she comes in second fiddle to her glamorous, worldly older sister. Ciresi's recounting of the drive for second generation immigrant children to challenge their parents and consciously repudiate their life-styles receives exceptional treatment in "Orphan Train," a chapter which I am convinced will become anthologized under the topics of "names and identities."The humor and ironic observations of childhood dissolve in the second half of the novel where the depressed Lina and the isolated Angel stumble badly through their adult lives. Trapped in a loveless (but externally perfect marriage), Lina entertains escapist fantasies and indulges in both an extramarital affair and an attempted suicide. After crafting an uproarious fantasy "Woman Seeking Man" want ad, Angel settles for a stultifyingly bland (but mildly controlling) professor. This relationship, which at least promised the hope of romance, dwindles as well.The author robust and graceful style make "Sometimes I Dream" a book you will want to devour. I am confident that Ms. Ceresi's work will soon find itself as an Oprah recommended novel. I am sure the work will find its way onto countless reading club lists. Count me as one reader who can hardly wait for her next novel.

Ciresi's work is funny and touching at the same time. Parts made me laugh out loud on the NYC Subway which is quite a feat. The people are so real - that you swear you know them. Just great!

Rita Ciresi's talent as a writer of short stories is no more evident than in this collection, where her stories sing with language and emotion and details so realistic that you'll believe every sentence.SOMETIMES I DREAM IN ITALIAN is divided into two sections: Ragazza-Girl and Donna-Woman. Within each section, we are treated to the awkward life of Angel, who struggles to reconcile her origins with her present self - and her imagined future self. Her Italian immigrant parents embarrass her and her sister Lina with their Old World ways and names. The girls just want to become glamorous, with underwear they'll throw out after one wearing and diamonds dripping from their necks. But their mother refuses to let them forget where they came from. As the two girls grow into disappointed women, with dreams they've had to adjust, Angel says (of German grammar, but it applies to her life), "I could not tell the who from the how and the where from the why." While I was reading this collection, I often laughed out loud, but, just as often, I felt the sorrow between the words.Although this book portrays an Italian-American family, you don't need to have interest in this American subculture to enjoy it. Ciresi's detailed description of these lives is so beautifully rendered that the humanity shows through the smallest gesture. This book is ultimately about family and its bonds, both liberating and restrictive. And about the dreams we have for ourselves.