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This memoir amusingly relates the story
of a family living through the shock of immigration and the
struggles of the Great Depression. Mama defies convention
in 1931 and goes to work in her husband’s restaurant,
the Austin Lunch.
Located on Chicago’s historic but seamy
Near West Side, Papa’s restaurant becomes an uncertain haven
for their two children, Helen and Nicky. Ironically, the restaurant
with its parade of assorted inner city characters becomes
a proving ground for the children to observe the energy, integrity
and courage of their hard working parents during the rough
thirties and early forties.
The book’s authentic sense of time and
place warmly records a personal slice of Twentieth Century
history through the honest eyes of childhood.
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