The memoir, Questions for the Heart, begins in the Pennsylvania steel town of my youth, among a close-knit community of Italian Americans, and moves through time to portray an inescapable, middle-age passion to reconnect with my ancestral past. The story unfolds through serendipitous events, beginning with the accidental discovery, by my wife Susie, of an old house in a small Tuscan village.
After navigating through the convoluted Italian bureaucracy of purchasing the house, we return to the village to begin repairing the dilapidated structure, which was originally built in the eighth century. In the process, I inadvertently become the matchmaker between our neighbors Iva and Luciano both in their sixties, never married, and both caring for their elderly mothers. The book recounts the development of their love for each other and mine for the house and the village, as we try to answer the complicating questions confronting our hearts.
This memoir takes place in the Tuscan countryside, but it is relevant to everyone, regardless their ancestry. Ultimately, what becomes apparent is that one doesn’t have to travel the world to find what all sentient beings seek; that the essentials of a humane existence are all around us, to be found and enjoyed in the moments of our everyday lives.
