Fiction. THEY SAY is a novel about a working-class, first-generation Italian family living in the Boston area in the first half of the 20th century, centering on the family's struggles over oldest brother Louie, whose early artistic genius and political passions deteriorate into delusion and severe mental illness. Narrated by various siblings in this sprawling family, their stories have the intimacy and drama of a conversation told around the kitchen table--and like any living, breathing family tale, the brothers' and sisters' stories intersect, run parallel, contradict each other, fill in each other's gaps. Theirs are stories of love and luck, as well as poverty, death, illness, and domestic abuse.

Author Hometown: Sommerville, MA USA



About the author: Joseph Torra is the author of numerous novels and books of poetry. Joe's titles include Gas Station, the My Ground Trilogy, They Say, Call Me Waiter and After the Chinese. Time Being is forthcoming from Lowell's Bootstrap Productions in 2009. He edited Stephen Jonas, Selected Poems. From 1990 - 1996 he published and edited lift magazine and presently Joseph serves as a contributing editor at Pressed Wafer Press. He teaches in the English Department at UMASS Boston and lives in Somerville with his wife and two daughters.