Tag Archives: Italian

Juliet Grames

The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna

Advisory: this passage contains abusive language and a dream sequence with an imagined sexual assault.

from The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna

Youth (The Fifth Death)

by Juliet Grames

THE  FIFTH DEATH BEGAN IN A DREAM.

One July morning in 1941, in the hanging lavender of predawn, Stella Fortuna rose from the bed she shared with Tina, leaving her sister to her last minutes of wet late-sleep snoring before their grueling day in the tobacco fields.

Stella took their ceramic washbasin to the kitchen, filled it with warm water, and brought it back to their nightstand. This was the girls’ beauty area, safe from the hectic imperialism of the boys’ barging and odors. This morning in her dream-for this was a dream-Stella watched her own face in the scuffed blue mirror nailed to the wall above the basin as she guided her washcloth over the areas that needed the most attention. She didn’t recognize herself, but that didn’t seem strange. Continue reading The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna →

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Mary Ann Tirone Smith

Girls of Tender Age, Chapter 22 (Final Section)

Girls of Tender Age, Chapter 22 (Final Section)
Reader Advisory: some readers may find this segment disturbing
In Chapter Twenty-Two the central horror of Tirone Smith’s childhood is almost too difficult to read. Tirone Smith is not one for sensationalism, though, and crafted detail follows crafted detail in grim succession. The aftermath of the murder of 11-year-old Irene Fiedorowicz starts with a police officer leaving for work late at night. Continue reading Girls of Tender Age, Chapter 22 (Final Section) →

Mary Ann Tirone Smith

from Girls of Tender Age

In Girls of Tender Age (2006), Tirone Smith drew on the memories of a Hartford childhood and the tragedy that haunted it. In Chapter Seven we meet her autistic and beloved brother Tyler, a portrait of the Charter Oak Terrace housing project in its early days, and a hilarious piano-moving scene. Continue reading from Girls of Tender Age →

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Mary Ann Tirone Smith

from Masters of Illusion

Masters of Illusion (1994) was Mary-Ann Tirone Smith’s fourth novel. It is a fictional account of the Hartford Circus Fire of 1944 and the decades following. The protagonist and the fire arrive on the first page, and then there’s a life-changing meeting on an Old Saybrook beach. Continue reading from Masters of Illusion →

Mary Ann Tirone Smith

“Awhirl in a Kaleidoscope of City Memories”

With five novels and three mysteries under her belt, Tirone Smith had established a sterling reputation by 2002 when she was asked by Hartford Courant Books Editor Carole Goldberg to write the keynote essay for the newspaper’s first annual Literary Supplement, which focused on Hartford authors. A phone call from a reader helped lead to her acclaimed memoir, Girls of Tender Age. Continue reading “Awhirl in a Kaleidoscope of City Memories” →