The Other America

The Other America is an epic drama of an extraordinary family: of Rosa and Giovanni Manzino who flee Sicily for New York at the turn of the century and their eldest son Gino who carries a secret legacy and builds an empire in the New World. Through five generations, in the fields of Sicily, the streets of New York and the mansions of Connecticut, Santorelli gives us a world of passionate intensity - a world where men carve out new space for themselves and women hold new sway - a world both murderous and merciful, born of violence and sacrifice, deceit and love. Letter to the Reader I have always been a person who has questioned and it has gotten me into trouble many a time, with my elders and with those who profess to know. There were times when I felt I was a wild horse and others were trying to break me. Thank God I had the sense to keep fighting. It was not expected in my family that I would write. My parents were born at the turn of the century and life in our neighborhood in Italian Harlem was limited. Few received even a high school education. Our social circle was strictly limited to a small circle of friends and family who lived within a few square blocks. Strangers were treated with distrust and girls - especially unmarried ones - were watched over by uncles, aunts, friends and neighbors. Although my mother, Anna DeGeorge, never imagined more for me than marriage and family, she was a true storyteller who set my soul aflame with tales of her early childhood and passionate adventures. I was a young girl when I left my mother's house for my husband's - and I had only a mile to walk to get there. Looking up, I saw a sky filled with shadows from clouds barely moving, as if the world was still. A voice inside whispered to me that no matter what others said or expected, my journey would take me far beyond these short blocks. For years, I had tried to be like the other girls. But on that moonlit night, windless and calm, my own power began to rise up in me. I began a life-long marriage of another kind, one with my own destiny and my own choices. I now have a wonderful marriage, six children and three grandchildren. I have had a rich, fulfilling life, filled with travel and dreams coming true. Yet sometimes over the years, I have found myself longing for something more - missing something I could not name. I felt such guilt for this. "What kind of person am I, who has such an extraordinary life, not to be always grateful for it?" I asked myself. My husband would say s