Chewing Gum in Holy Water A Childhood in the Heart of Italy

"Every once in a while comes a memoir of childhood that is so special it at once captures and transcends its time and place and touches the heart of every reader. Chewing Gum in Holy Water is such a memoir. Told, like Angela's Ashes and Cinema Paradise, from the perspective of a child, it is a warm, funny, tender, and nostalgic look at growing up in postwar Italy." "Mario Valentini was born in Collemare, a tiny stone hilltop village in the rugged mountains of the Abruzzo, in the heart of Italy. With money short at home and his father working in a foreign land, at four years old he was sent to live with his uncle, a traveling priest. Thus began a life of unexpected freedoms and marvelous adventures. For the mischievous boy, who loved nothing so much as swordplay, tales of Romans and Crusaders, and American chewing gum, every new town meant new friends, and getting into trouble was as easy as shooting his slingshot. From confronting a hungry wolf at dusk to pretending to be his uncle in the confessional, from drinking in the fumes of an enormous empty wine barrel to challenging a bull in an open field in order to win the love of a girl, every anecdote sparkles with his exuberance and joie de vivre. As he grows, he gleans lessons from unexpected sources: a curmudgeonly painter who encourages him to see without preconception; a knife-throwing princess who teaches him something about honor and betrayal; a communist reputed to eat priests for dinner; and even the caustic spinster aunt who keeps house for his uncle."--BOOK JACKET.Valentini, Mario is the author of 'Chewing Gum in Holy Water A Childhood in the Heart of Italy', published 2007 under ISBN 9781559708371 and ISBN 1559708379.