This summer, Erin Balser is reading all 20 titles on Oprah’s Summer Reading List. The Summer of Oprah will be chronicled on Books@Torontoist every Monday and Thursday throughout July and August.
In the novel Elizabeth Street, Laurie Fabiano traces her family’s journey from early 20th-century Scilla, Italy, to modern day New York City. While the prose is choppy and the book design amateur (it is published by Amazon Encore, a confusing Amazon-driven publishing house), the story of Fabiano’s great-grandmother Giovanna and the family’s many trials is even more astounding for being based on a true story. Giovanna is a pillar of strength as she faces tragedy after tragedy and still manages to build a life for herself and her family in the New World.
Last night, I took a beginners’ sewing class, the first time I sat in front of a sewing machine in 15 years. My mother was never a sewer, but my grandmother was. I used to go to her house down the street and help her make doll clothes, hem curtains, and quilt. Sitting at the machine, pumping the pedal and turning fabric into something useful, I was transported back to those afternoons spent with her, hunched in front of my latest project. The plastic table cover, the vintage Singer, the breath-mints-meets-wood-chips-and-chocolate-chip-cookies smell of my grandmother. I was 10 years old again, proudly sewing crooked seams. My grandmother was my favourite person and being there with her was my favourite place in the world.
Until I turned 13.
New York is vibrant in it’s gritty glory, filled with architectural wonder, tales of triumph and tragedy and, strongest of all, the hope that everyone seems to carry with them. As we move through the decades, New York City is the one constant in this family’s chaotic ever-changing life. Fabiano’s portrait of the city pulls this book together, even when the family drama seems to be coming apart.
If New York City is one anchor in Elizabeth Street, matriarch Giovanna Costa is the other. When she’s not making important decisions she’s inspiring them, and when times get tough—like when she receives the unwelcome attention of the Black Hand, an early version of the Mafia—she pulls the family together. Despite setbacks, she pushes forward and travels to America, starts a family against the slimmest odds, and launches a successful business on Coney Island. Her vivaciousness and stubbornness jumped off the page, reminding me so much of my own grandmother and all that she’s gone through. My need to know this woman’s story kept me reading long into the night, even when plot gaps and awkward language occasionally had me stumbling.
My grandmother was always laughing, patient, and affectionate. She encouraged me to try new things, fed me with cookies, and let me go on my way when I entered teenagedom and decided painting my nails was cooler than hemming drapes. My daily visits became weekly, then monthly, then hardly ever. The few times I tolerated this old woman and her strange smell and too large television were when my parents forced me. I no longer cared about her trips around the world, her 13 siblings and what my father was like when he was little. I wanted out. When I left home for school, I finally came around and began to appreciate who she is, her rich past and comforting touch. She has so many stories to tell, and even after all these years, I’m sure I’ve heard only a few.
Laurie Fabiano felt so passionate about her family’s history and her great-grandmother’s story that she wrote an entire book about it. And that’s what makes Elizabeth Street worth a look. It’ll open your eyes to the Italian immigration experience in North America, but also remind you of your own family and the unspoken stories living in your grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles. What have they gone through? What secrets do they harbour? What don’t I know and why don’t I know it? Fabiano knew so little about her grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s life before she began researching the book. Through research and writing it, she became connect to family members she never knew, stories she never hears, and inserts herself into her family’s narrative.
And here I sit, knowing so little about mine.
It’s never too late to start.
Illustration by Brian McLachlan/Torontoist
