"Most novels don't have footnotes," said a friend to whom I'd sent a draft manuscript of this book.

True, but most novels aren't overtly based on real people. This one is. Carmelo and Nellie Tosto were my parents. Why is it a novel, a work of fiction? Because there isn't enough documentable evidence about them to constitute a typical biography.

Unlike today, with its surfeit of personal data - photos, videos, correspondence, diaries, and the like - the period between 1901 and 1939 afforded few opportunities, especially for lower class immigrants, to leave tangible evidence of their presence on earth.

Before converging in an arranged marriage, the lives of Carmelo Tosto and Nellie Cascio were on divergent paths.

Carmelo's history is particularly sparse as his documentation originates at an institution for abandoned infants in Catania, Sicily in 1901. He grew up in a nearby fishing village and at the age of 14 went to work as a merchant marine sailor until 1925 when he jumped ship in Baltimore.

Nellie was born in Sicily but grew up from infancy in America with serious aspirations to become a Catholic nun. There's much more evidence of her early life, but her character and story need some enhancement.

After diligent gleaning using today's powerful internet search tools, I amassed a trove of facts about them. I added to those findings whatever I could collect from personal reminiscences, family lore, and some artifacts.

It was exciting to see the early days of my long-gone parents taking shape in my mind. But also frustrating. Like scrapbooks retrieved from a flood, the tide of time had dissolved much detail about them. As the first fruit of their convergence, I didn't know them personally until they were well into their 30s. By then, like most of us, they had changed markedly from their youthful personas.

I felt the best way to present their story was to assemble my collection of fact fragments with the connective tissue of fiction. So I invented much of the material, most of which is based on plausible inferences from the facts.

In writing this book, my parents became more human, more fascinating, and more charming to me than when we made each other miserable in the 1940s and 1950s. I hope this book will help you appreciate them better than I did then, and as much as I do now.

Trigger warning: There are some Italian words sprinkled into the story, especially in accounts of the earliest times. To me, they evoked the worlds of my parents and kept me in the mood. To translate each of them would be interruptive, tedious, and none are essential to understanding the meaning of the context in which they are used. If you’re interested, look them up at collinsdictionary.com - but be advised that many of these words may be a bit “spicy” for some palates. Don’t be stymied by them. Just think of them as bits of Italian seasoning. Buon appetito!