The achingly true story of a Bronx tomboy whose 1960s girlhood was marked by her WWII veteran father's lullabies laced with dissociative visions of trench warfare. At four years old, Annie Lanzillotto hid silver teaspoons behind the heatpipes to tap calls for help when the fighting broke out between her parents. At eighteen, on the edge of ambitious freedom, her studies at Brown University were halted by the growth of a massive tumor inside her chest. Lanzillotto walked out of Sloan-Kettering just as A.I.D.S. was named, and made a wild truth-seeking ride out of survival, going into the fray of gay clubs and cross-dressing on the streets of Egypt. This poignant and authentic story could only happen in New York, with this quintessential New Yorker as narrator and guide, with poetic insights from underneath the dining room table, to the stoop, sidewalk, street and out into the world of Italian American characters and their stories about war, immigration, gay sub-culture, cancer, mental illness, gender dynamics, drug addiction, domestic violence, the childhood wonder of Spaldeens, crescendoing in a reluctant return home to the timeless wisdom of her peasant grandmother Rosa Petruzzelli who shows her the sweetest essence of soul.

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 20, 2013 -- 2 PM
Westchester Italian Cultural Center
24 Depot Square, Tuckahoe, NY
Registration required; call 914- 771-8799
www.wiccny.org

WEDNESDAY MARCH 13, 2013 -- 6PM
The John D. Calandra Institute for Italian American Studies
25 West 43rd Street, 17th Floor, NY, NY 10036
Registration required: 212-642-2094
www.qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/calandra/events/events#41

WEDNESDAY APRIL 3RD, 2013 -- 6:30 PM
Gotham Center for NYC History
The Martin E. Segal Theater
CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, NY
Phone: 212-817-8460
First-come first-serve seating. No reservations required.
www.gothamcenter.org

The book:
SUNY Press 2013
331 Pages, over 30 photos
ISBN: 978-4384-4525-0
$24.95 hardcover
www.sunypress.org