Book Shares Coming-of age-story of a Young Boy in 1950s Chicago

In 1950s Chicago, author Greg Grieco was a young boy who hides in his bedroom closet to escape his father's habitual rage. There he conjures up another father figure in his artistic Italian grandfather, Canio, his glimpse into happiness. With his wondrous tricks and stories of Italy, his library and drawings, his baseball and opera, Canio becomes the model of creativity for his lonely, introverted grandson.

In "Canio's Secret: A Memoir of Ethnicity, Electricity, and my Immigrant Grandfather's Wisdom" (published by Lulu), the author shares a coming-of-age story that chronicles a boy's poignant struggle to find consolation in his mother's Catholicism and break free of his father's anger. It is also the vibrant portrait of a multi-ethnic neighborhood soon to be scattered by white flight. As the author ponders his grandfather's influence, the memoir becomes a meditation on Canio's enigmatic advice, offered in the summer of 1953: "Happiness is all that's required." For more details about the book, please visit https://www.amazon.com/Canios-Secret-Ethnicity-Electricity-Grandfathers/dp/1483482251.

"Canio's Secret tells both a familiar American story of immigrants who come to the U.S. to make better lives for their families and a distinct story of an artistic grandfather from a mountaintop village in southern Italy who speaks of art and philosophy, of comedic timing and scientific knowledge," says the author. "Told by a grandson assessing the experience of two earlier generations of fathers who lived out different forms of masculinity and acculturation, this memoir creates intimacy through its arresting voices, ranging from the comedic voice of the child recollecting his rebellious insertion of fingers in Christmas light sockets to the philosophical voice of the older writer meditating on the nature of self-knowledge and love. Throughout, the story of a younger self is situated in the dynamic social relations of everyday life in a rapidly changing Chicago neighborhood, rendering the memoir a tale of Midwestern Italian America."

"Canio's Secret: A Memoir of Ethnicity, Electricity, and my Immigrant Grandfather's Wisdom" immerses readers in the daily life of an immigrant family and a multi-ethnic community in 1950s Chicago. Its story of a sensitive boy struggling to escape a father's explosive temper invites readers to imagine or identify with struggles to survive dysfunction and psychological violence by means of ingenuity, wit, and persistence in finding reserves of family love and alternative models of masculinity. In its loving act of conjuring the grandfather whose influence motivated a lifelong quest for life's meaning readers glimpse the redemptive power of saving and animating family stories.

"Canio's Secret: A Memoir of Ethnicity, Electricity, and my Immigrant Grandfather's Wisdom"
By Greg Grieco
Softcover | 5.83 x 8.27in | 240 pages | ISBN 9781483482255
E-Book | 240 pages | ISBN 9781483482248
Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author
Greg Grieco received his bachelor's degree in English and a minor in physics from Notre Dame University. He eventually pursued a master's degree in fine arts in film and theater at the University of Minnesota. In the early 1970s, he was an active member of Chicago's Kartemquin Films. Committed to social justice, he worked with non-profit organizations in Tucson, Washington, D.C., Binghamton and Ann Arbor.

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