Marianne Leone - Ma Speaks Up. Friday May 12, 6-8 pm EDT - I Am Books, 189 North St, Boston 02113

Marianne Leone's Ma is in many senses a larger than life character, one who might be capable, even from the afterlife, of shattering expectations (and glass picture frames). Born on a farm in Italy (or, perhaps, in rural Massachusetts), Linda finds her way to the US under dark circumstances, having escaped a forced marriage to a much older man (a hunchback?), and marrying a good Italian boy (but not in the church).

She never has full command of English, especially when questioned by authorities, and when she is suddenly widowed with three young children, she has few options. To her daughter's horror and misery, she becomes (though briefly), the school lunch lady.

Ma Speaks Up is a record of growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, with the wrong family, in the wrong religion. Though Marianne's girlhood is flooded with shame, it's equally packed with adventure, love, great cooking, and above all humor. The extremely premature birth of Marianne's beloved son, Jesse, bonds mother and daughter in ways she couldn't have imagined. The stories she tells will speak to anyone who has struggled with outsider status in any form, and of course to mothers and their blemished, cherished, girls.