If you eat, you never die

the long version

In a neighborhood on Chicago's outskirts, Fabio and Lucia Comingo have built a new American life — and struggle to comprehend the influences that distract and change their restless young sons. Through this masterful evocation of a time and place, Tony Romano, the acclaimed author of When the World Was Young, brings a first-generation Italian American family vividly and poignantly alive in closely related tales at once joyous, heartbreaking, and honest. Weaving two dozen stories into a stunning, cohesive family history, Romano gives readers hope for togetherness amid the painful generational cycle of loss and redemption — as children grow and learn, and decide which treasures of cultural inheritance they will cherish.