Saturday,
December 20, 2008
"If You Eat, You Never Die: Chicago Tales" by
Tony Romano
Italian
family history, collective and personaland the fault lines that distance people
united by bloodis at the heart of "If You Eat, You Never Die: Chicago
Tales." In a series of atmospheric stories, Romano explores three
generations' points of view,
constructing a layered portrait of Comingo/Cummings' memories and experience. The structure of the book
supports a kind of kaleidoscope: parts that, put together, influence the whole.
The result is an evocation of time, place and immigrant experience that comes
alive with strong detail
"If You Eat, You Never Die: Chicago Tales" by
Tony Romano
Chicago Tribune
By Lynna Williams
December 20, 2008
When
Michelino Comingo comes to
the United States
as a small child, his mother, Lucia, changes the family name to the more
"prosperous"read AmericanCummings.
Years later, he takes his father to City Hall to reclaim Comingo
as his name. Although he has urged his father to make the change, he still
debates how to choose for himself: Will he be Michael Peter Cummings or Michelino Pietro Comingo? As he
looks at the other immigrants at City Hall, imagining them Americanizing their
names by "lopping off endings, discarding unnecessary vowels" as his
mother had done, the choice turns out to be simple. He goes with extending his
legacy, "throwing out tug lines across the Atlantic,"
believing that Comingo is a "passport" to
his personal history as an Italian. His younger brother, Giacomo, or Jimmy,
will stick with Cummings, a choice that links him to the mother Jimmy faults
for so many things over the years.
Family history, collective and personaland the fault lines that distance people
united by bloodis at the heart of Chicago
writer Tony Romano's "If You
Eat, You Never Die: Chicago Tales." In a series of atmospheric stories, he
explores three generations' points
of view, constructing a layered portrait of Comingo/Cummings' memories and experience. The structure of the book
supports a kind of kaleidoscope: parts that, put together, influence the whole.
The result is an evocation of time, place and immigrant experience that comes
alive with strong detail
"He
wanted to name me Perla, which means pearl in
Italian," says Michelino's
daughter, Justine. "He said pearls were lustrous, that no two were alike.
But Mother complained that Perla wasn't even a name. Besides, she said, pearls are
nothing more than the innards of smelly shellfish. Justine, on the other hand,
meant 'upright, just.' Just what? My father always wanted to know."
While we see the boys' marriages,
and meet their daughters in the third generation, it is forceful Lucia who
dominates the family story, especially in the points of view of her sons. They
grow up reacting in different ways to her push to controland especially, to
feedthem. In the 1950s neighborhood where they live outside Chicago, Lucia often tells the story of her
younger son's refusal to eat as a
child. "He most die 'cause
he no eat," she says. "I give my milk three month, but I no have nough. So I give bottle. Giacomo no take. He cry eh
cry."
As a teenager struggling to make weight as a wrestler, Jimmy is forced to eat
by his mother, who shoves food at him. He must hear, too, her standby Italian
proverb: If you eat, you never die.
We see where the family began, in a small village in Italy, where barber Fabio Comingo and Lucia Tegolari are both in love with other people before their
parents arrange their engagement. In America, Lucia bullies Fabio over a long marriage; when he leaves home one
day, he is brought back by his young sons whom Lucia dispatches to the barber
shop for that purpose. There is love between them, which their sons don't always see.
The strongest parts of the collection are the boys'
childhood experiences, especially in Giacomo/Jimmy's
point of view. In "Milkboy," for example,
Jimmy is humiliated by his mother chasing him at the end of a neighborhood game
of ring-a-levio, and momentarily turns against the
milk man he's helping with
deliveries.
The choices we make, and the consequences of them, are everywhere in "If
You Eat, You Never Die."
If You Eat, You Never Die: Chicago Tales
By Tony Romano
Harper Perennial 257 pages, $13.95
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