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Ghetto Bastard: A Memoir

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Russell Vann

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“He did not want to escape. So he surrendered to this madness, this beautiful madness. This wanting. Let himself melt, as heat shot through his body despite the cold. It had been so long since he'd kissed anyone, and having that heart-shaped mouth under his was so improbable and, frankly, it was making him crazy. So was the no-holds-barred enthusiasm with which she was returning his kiss.”

SnowPrincessChristmas RomanceBronxHoliday RomanceRoyalty RomanceCabdriver
Book:A Princess for Christmas
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“Christmas is big business in Eldovia. We have an annual Cocoa Fest on Christmas Eve day. Restaurants and pubs participate, and so does the palace. We make big cauldrons of different kinds of cocoa and serve them outside on the grounds.” “Are you kidding me?” Gabby demanded. Marie laughed. “I am entirely in earnest. And there’s a Cocoa Ball in the evening—though that’s not for children.” She wasn’t sure why she added that qualifier. It wasn’t as if Gabby, whose eyes had grown comically wide, would be around to be told she couldn’t attend the ball. “Oh my god, you are from a fake Hallmark country,” Leo deadpanned.”

Christmas RomanceBronxHoliday RomanceEldoviaPrincess Romance
Book:A Princess for Christmas
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“I was raised in what is now the "jungle" of New York, the lower Bronx, and, indeed, at that time it was a very pleasant place. We played like all other kids. Where I lived was a very small enclave, a ghetto, but there were a number of ghettos. Most of the people there were immigrants; first generation Americans from Italy, Ireland, Poland, and there were a few French people. In a way, in a peculiar way, it was an integrated community composed of several separated ghettos. That was about the norm in those days. The idea of integration hadn't really gotten started, so I think that for anyone living today it would be a period that would be really difficult to understand...it was...in spite of some of the racism which I began to learn in school, a rather pleasant life.”

ImmigrantsNew York CityIntegrationGhettoBronx
Book:Why I Left America and Other Essays
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“Every few blocks were vacant lots where victory gardens had been planted at the height of the war. By then, they were wrecked and full of debris. Once in a while, when you looked down at the sidewalk along the lots, you’d see a blade of grass growing up out of the concrete. That’s what my friend, the acting teacher Lee Strasberg, once called talent: a blade of grass growing up out of a block of concrete.”

TalentGardenGrassConcreteSidewalkBronxDebrisAl PacinoLee StrasbergSouth Bronx
Book:Sonny Boy: A Memoir
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