Unspoken Questions

A Memoir of Loyalty Over Truth

When I fell in love with Gar, a blue-eyed collegiate swimmer, I opened my heart to his lively Sicilian family. Loud, bold, larger than life, they were everything my family was not. I could hardly wait to join them. Little did I know an all-out conspiracy to hide the truth would threaten to destroy our happily ever after.

UNSPOKEN QUESTIONS explores what happens in a family when misguided loyalty hurts the person it intended to protect. This coming-of-age memoir examines the search for personal identity, a daughter’s profound grief, the uncovering of a hidden family history, the generational wounds of adoption. And an outsider’s take on the sometimes-comical quirks of Italian American culture: basement holidays, the sign of the horns, flocked wallpaper, three-day funerals, one-cheek kisses, slot machines, and food as a religion in this man-on-top, woman-in-the-kitchen family with too many Franks and Helens.