The house of early sorrows : a memoir in essays / Louise DeSalvo.

By:

DeSalvo, Louise A, 1942-2018 [author.]

Material type: Text

TextPublisher: New York : Fordham University Press, [2018]Description: 1 online resource (xvii, 208 pages)Content type:

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

0823279324
9780823279326
9780823279319
0823279316

Subject(s): Genre/Form:

Additional physical formats: Print version:: House of early sorrows.DDC classification:

814/.6 23

LOC classification:

PS3554.E833
PR55.D47 A3 2018e

Online resources:

EBSCOhost

Contents:

Prologue: ghost writer -- Lifeboat -- Cutting the bread -- Dark white -- Passing the saint -- White on black -- Fourteenth Street -- The house of early sorrows -- My sister's suicide -- Breathless, adjective -- V and I -- Adultery stories -- Old flame -- Moving on.

Summary: As the child of children of immigrants, Louise DeSalvo was at first reluctant to write about her truths. Her abusive father, her sister's suicide, her illness. In this stunning collection of her captivating and frank essays on her life and her Italian-American culture, Louise DeSalvo centers on her beginnings, reframing and revising her acclaimed memoiristic essays, pieces that were the seeds of longer collections, to reveal her true power as a memoirist: the ability to dig ever deeper for personal and political truths that illuminate what it means to be a woman, a second-generation American, a writer, and a scholar. Each essay is driven by a complex inquiry that examines the personal, familial, social, ethnic, and historical dimensions of identity. Collectively, they constitute a story significantly different from DeSalvo's memoirs when they first published, where the starkness of their meaning became blunted by material surrounding them. DeSalvo has also restored material written and then deleted--experiences she was too reticent to reveal before, in writing about her sister's suicide, her husband's adultery, her own sexual assault. The essays also include new material to shift the ballast of an essay as her life has changed significantly through the years. The House of Early Sorrows is a courageous exploration not only of the DeSalvo's family life and times, but also of our own.

Holdings ( 1 )
Title notes ( 3 )

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
eBook	e-Library	EBSCO Biograhpy		Available

Total holds: 0

As the child of children of immigrants, Louise DeSalvo was at first reluctant to write about her truths. Her abusive father, her sister's suicide, her illness. In this stunning collection of her captivating and frank essays on her life and her Italian-American culture, Louise DeSalvo centers on her beginnings, reframing and revising her acclaimed memoiristic essays, pieces that were the seeds of longer collections, to reveal her true power as a memoirist: the ability to dig ever deeper for personal and political truths that illuminate what it means to be a woman, a second-generation American, a writer, and a scholar. Each essay is driven by a complex inquiry that examines the personal, familial, social, ethnic, and historical dimensions of identity. Collectively, they constitute a story significantly different from DeSalvo's memoirs when they first published, where the starkness of their meaning became blunted by material surrounding them. DeSalvo has also restored material written and then deleted--experiences she was too reticent to reveal before, in writing about her sister's suicide, her husband's adultery, her own sexual assault. The essays also include new material to shift the ballast of an essay as her life has changed significantly through the years. The House of Early Sorrows is a courageous exploration not only of the DeSalvo's family life and times, but also of our own.

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