Memoirs of an Immigrant

Born in 1905, Theodore Buzzeo lived for nearly the entire span of the 20th century. Emigrating to the United States from Italy at the age of 16, Buzzeo lacked formal education, but read Dante and was an opera fanatic. He worked as a dog trainer, a truck driver, a butcher, a professional hunter, a businessman and at 120 pounds a boxer. His autobiography, Memoirs of an Immigrant, finished just before his 1997 death and edited by his daughter, Maddalena Buzzeo, is both harrowing and deadpan. When Katie, his former mistress, ends up in Bellevue after slashing her baby's neck and her own wrists, Buzzeo writes, ""I do not know how everything ended up. I hope well."" A strange, sometimes eloquent, American chronicle. ( July)