Lorenzo Carcaterra

My parents never owned a book. None of their friends, all living in railroad cold-water tenement apartments, did either. Few spoke English, preferring the comfort of the language of their homeland. They were working class people, the men putting in long hours inside dark hulls of piers or the cold interior of the downtown meat market, their hands hard and callused, their faces lined and weary. The women stayed at home, cooking meals, washing clothes by hand, shopping and bartering for fresh produce at reasonable prices, taking their kids to school in the morning and to the park in the afternoon. Each one longing for a country they left behind.

Some of the men had criminal pasts, complete with years served behind state prison bars. Many of them gambled their much needed and hard-earned money on daily doubles and nickel numbers. Too many cheated on the women in their lives and spent too many of their nights in dark bars, drowning the dreams of their youth behind the hard taste of an empty shot glass. The women were devoted to their church, spending countless hours under the glow of lit votive candles, praying to an indifferent God for a way out of their impoverished plight.

They had made for themselves a lifetime of struggle and strife, working jobs that never paid enough and were destined to damage their health, living in apartments that were saunas in the summer and were so cold in the winters that the window panes would often crack. They had no grand designs on the future and little hope for the present. There was never any talk of summer vacations or camps for the kids or having enough money saved to lay down on a small house. I am a writer because of the people I grew up with and the world they allowed me to witness and live in. Men and women who could not read above a second grade level formed the foundation of my literary education. Their lessons were simple, heart-felt and meant to last me a lifetime. It was their gift to me and one that they expected me to respect and pass down to others. I have done my best to do so. Most of those men and women are now long dead, their voices and tales alive only in memory. And in the pages of the books I write. I will never be able to thank them enough.
-Lorenzo Carcaterra
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