Christina Marrocco

This book is a gorgeous, meticulous, precise, honest, unflagging look at realities, both internal and external. Reale, a poet and expert researcher, librarian combines memoir, essay reflection, and poetry to peel back the layers on her (our) reckoning with race. Her voice is simply sublime here as she, like a seam-ripper, opens the stitches of delusion and refusal to acknowledge realities and complexities--as she brings her truth observed up to our eyes--into the mirror, per se. This is not a book only for Italian Americans, it's for everyone. Applicable and important to all--I say--from a variety of lenses. A svelte volume, you will read it through and then re-read it sideways and upside down. I recommend this as an essential piece in your personal library--I recommend it as a piece in your classroom.