Product Review

Imagine suddenly leaving a comfortable and successful job in exchange for a year of living and working in Italy. You book a flight with no definite idea of where you’ll live or work, no visa and no work permit. Further imagine taking your wife and two distinctly unenthusiastic teen daughters with you. Your colleagues begin to doubt your mental balance, and you can’t blame them. Yet somehow this family learned to work, study, speak, shop and survive in a foreign land while stumbling their way through the delicious process of learning to live like Italians—all ‟without papers.” Along the way, the author impersonates an Italian cousin, gets his family lost innumerable times and meets his own personal version of the godfather—the man who hired him and gave him an apartment. The teen daughters struggle to find themselves while attending school by day and exploring young adult nightclubs into the early morning hours—while family members fight to work out their differences. In the tradition of Under the Tuscan Sun and Italian Neighbors, the travel memoir An American Family in Italy will appeal to families of all ages seeking adventure, challenge, a fresh start or a chance to embrace their inner Italian.