A shell game
As a child, I collected souls (but it was only when the deities slumbered). It mattered little that I did [...]
In real life
Some weeks ago — my sense of time these days is admittedly fragile — I received an email from a [...]
The Day of the Puma
Some forty May moons ago, when balding Socialist Prime Minister Bettino Craxi held monied sway over suddenly booming Italy and [...]
Shovel and broom
Some people have parents who behave conventionally, not so in the case of columnist Madeleine Johnson, whose mother and father had methods all their own for dealing with the vicissitudes of daily life.
A husband too far
Birthdays feed on ghosts. Sifting through an antique chest I come upon the 86-page manuscript of a play written by [...]
An Apulian love story
One late spring day in 1940, a day on which the southern Italian sun was already pounding down, Rocco came [...]
Violin lessons
Every time I return to my father’s house in Iowa, I try to whittle down my childhood belongings. I’m down [...]
Too deep
When Alfredo Rampi was trapped in a well near Rome in June 1981, Italy came to a halt.
Of knives and fire
Some memories seem not to belong to one’s own life, but rather as details from a youth spent on some [...]
Make room for Yuri
Our Solar System was the only one with a planet named Yuri. This important piece of information emerged from Mrs. [...]
James and Peggy in the Latin Quarter
This is excellent, wrote my bass teacher, sending me a link to an article about American writer James Baldwin’s relationship [...]