A Full House: Growing Up Italian

Travel back in time to the early 1900s when Rita Harrison's mother, father, aunts, and cousins arrived from Italy to carve out a new life in a small mill town in Massachusetts. The elder generation faithfully kept the traditions of their homeland, while the younger generation grew up in the midst of two cultures.

Harrison and her siblings learn of their parents' native land, through the sharing of delicious Italian cooking and their mother's singing of her native songs while doing laundry. Their "papa" was a patriarch with a strong work ethic and a green thumb; much of what the family ate was grown in his backyard garden.

The author's portraits of her two sisters and five brothers, her memories of summer camp, her encounters with the Catholic Church, and her discoveries of self along the road to adulthood are vivid and compelling.

Told with honesty, humor, and pathos, this memoir will bring forth a flood of memories for immigrant families from the first half of the 20th century.

Rita Conti Harrison is a mother of five and credits her late husband Ray with her writing success. She is a member of a writers group that meets regularly. This is her first book. She lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.