The Editor's Wastebasket

THE EDITOR'S WASTEBASKET is a journey of prose through America's urban landscape of the 20th century ... the modern American experience of a son of Italian immigrants, a childhood enmeshed in poverty and cultural intolerance, yet ... fulfilling among the close bonds of family members and friends. Mario's writing flows effortlessly from one experience to another, like a river of epiphanies that define the human experience. ... It is an exceptional book that brings poetry to the hardscrabble lives of our immigrant ancestors and their children, our fathers and mothers, who became the Greatest Generation. (Truby Chiavello, Editor, PRIMO Magazine.

The reader gets a vivid picture of what Mario is seeing, as if we are following along with a video camera recording all he sees, hears and feels. He generously shares his love for the people he knew and the warmth that embraced him during his life. One can almost see the neighbors go by or listen to the cacophonous sounds from the ethnically mixed neighborhoods of yesterday -- the feasts, the words, the simple faith -- without pretension. His memories become our memories.