A courageous family memoir explores
what it means to be American.
—Oh, Beautiful Milestones—
PATRIOTIC NEWS: L.A. Dodgers Salute Joseph Godges as “ Military Hero of the Game.”
HEAVENLY NEWS: Jesuit video series about gay Catholics hits Raw Story’s nerve.
WINNING NEWS: “Oh, Beautiful” wins IndieReader Discovery Award for American Studies.
TERRIFIC NEWS: “Oh, Beautiful” named 2012 Eric Hoffer Book Award recipient.
EXCELLENT NEWS: “Oh, Beautiful” named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best of 2011 book list.
SUPERB NEWS: Self-published family memoir receives coveted Kirkus Star.
BIG NEWS: Indie Book Awards finalist! “Oh, Beautiful” honored in two memoir categories.
REVIEWS: Read the latest raves from authors, readers, and other reviewers.
VIDEOS: Exuberant author (below) shares “epiphany” for writing an American memoir.
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AN EXTENDED ITALIAN IMMIGRANT FAMILY clings to community life amid tragedy, the Spanish flu, Prohibition, and the Great Depression. A broken Polish immigrant family leaves a legacy of heartbreak, separation, Civilian Conservation Corps redemption, and World War II heroism. From these dissimilar backgrounds emerges a quintessential American family, one whose members embody the conflicting social movements of their times: a staunchly Catholic Polish immigrant U.S. Marine Corps father, an emotionally effusive Italian mother, an Oliver North son, a Hillary Clinton daughter, a mentally ill sister, a jock brother, a lesbian rocker, and a gay male activist. In an age of bitter cultural polarization, Oh, Beautiful: An American Family in the 20th Century celebrates what has kept America together. This true story is an engrossing portrait of an American family and an evocative documentation of nearly 100 years of American history.
ON THE COVER: In April 1941, Jozef Godzisz, a 17-year-old immigrant from Poland, leans against a Civilian Conservation Corps work truck at Camp Evelyn, located in the Hiawatha National Forest on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, near the towns of Wetmore and Munising.