VOICES OF THE DAUGHTERS is a forum in book format for the daughters of the Italian immigrants. At the turn of the century, in southern Italy, unmarried females weren't allowed to travel to the next village unchaperoned. Yet, their fathers put them on ships in Naples and sent them across an ocean to marry strangers waiting for them in New York--the ethnic equivalent of today's Asiatic mail-order brides. But these young Italian women were to become more than brides to men they hardly knew; they were to become the hearts and souls of the Italian-American families across America. The daughters of these formidable Italian women are now doing more than cooking and cleaning. They are involved with professions and careers as well as being wives and mothers. They have become the modern "superwomen" with an ethnic slant. Listen to some of their comments: I was ashamed for a very short time to be considered the little Italian girl with the pierced ears. Dolores I think they were afraid for us to make waves. The more we could blend in the safer it would be. Jane My father discouraged my interest in law. It was no place for a woman, associating with criminals. So I became a teacher. Carol Bonomo Ahearn When our parents arrived from Italy, they wanted to become Americans. I was born in America and always wanted to be an Italian. Catherine M.
VENDETTA MOUNTAIN is about Donato "Donny" Belardo's pilgrimage to southern Italy. He's a "professional" Italian-American if there ever was one. And the trip was to be his dream vacation. So, as expected, he and his wife, Cathleen, did the grand tour of the usual tourist sights in northern and central Italy and the Naples area. They toured the unique, sometimes odorous canal streets of Venice, gawked in awe at the breathtaking art in Florence's many squares and palatial museums, enjoyed the shimmering beauty of Capri, that jewel of the Gulf of Naples, and the scenic Neopolitan coastline all the way south to Sorrento and Almalfi. But for Donny, his scheduled week in isolated Montenuovo, the ancestral hilltown of his forefathers, located deep in the mountains of sparsely populated Basilicata, one of the many poor regions of southern Italy, was the real reson he had made the long flight across the Atlantic Ocean and northern Europe with his Irish-American wife, Cathleen. Once in Montenuovo, Donny tries to immerse himself in its quaint, special ambiance. He wants to absorb its every detail with all of his senses, his mind, his heart, while recording it on film for the relatives back home to see. Donny sees beauty in this rugged, eroded landscape. He wants to be a part of it, and to be accepted by its people. But there are obstacles. And when it finally becomes apparent to him, although sooner to his wife, that in the half-empty hilltown there are those who want him dead, the trip sours for him. Why someone would want to kill him, he has no idea. Soon, survival takes priority over sightseeing. The why and the who are as unfathomable to Donny and Cathleen as the bottom of a murky, stagnant pond, and only violence will clear away the enigma for them, ending the nightmare. How to overcome this threat to their lives will become paramount, and it will test their character and fortitude to the fullest.