Geography of Shame: A Fictionalized Memoir

IN GEOGRAPHY OF SHAME, Maryann Feola presents the life of New York City English professor, Arianna Naso, coming to terms with her family's traumatic past. Armed with the security of tenure and promotion, Ari takes a break from academic publishing to write her life story. Growing up in a close-knit Italian American family, she often felt like the "square peg" her family was determined to force into a round hole. Adherence to old-world traditions and suspicious of modern life-especially where it empowered women-was the code of the hard-working, hard-drinking patriarchs who ruled the roost. This fictionalized memoir opens in 1963 with thirteen-year-old Ari vacationing in Florida at the home of the outspoken, self-reliant Thelma Johnson. Before returning home, Ari has an accident that leaves her unconscious. In a dream state, she glimpses the future when she will write a story of loss and redemption. But the rebellious Ari has no idea of the bittersweet journey to self-fulfillment that will result in a chronic eating disorder, a violent marriage, and the inability to cope with her only child's struggle with depression and drug abuse. Separating the secrets from the sickness, Geography of Shame maps generations of family life from the rural hills of the Amalfi coast to the New York City shoreline near Brooklyn's Verrazano Narrows.