When Giuseppe Talese left Maida for Ocean City, New Jersey, he could hardly have imagined that the small Calabrian town he left behind would one day claim his descendants as its own. Giuseppe was the father of Gay Talese, one of the most influential American journalists and pioneers of the New Journalism movement, whose family history in Maida became a central thread of his 1992 memoir Unto the Sons.
Now, more than a century after Maida’s emigrants began scattering across the world, the town is extending an invitation to their descendants: come back, reconnect with your roots and perhaps rediscover a place that has remained part of your family story.
