Love & Loyalty

With the excitement, humor, and pathos of a novel, Josephine B. Pasquarello recounts growing up in 1950s and ’60s Philadelphia in colorful detail. She paints the many characters of her neighborhood with clarity and passion. But the figure who stands out the most in this family saga is the matriarch of her clan, Romania Pasquarello, whose wisdom, tireless labor, compassion, and beauty carry the family through. The author recalls that back in that time there was a show called Queen for a Day, which enshrined everyday women—mothers and wives—in their true splendor, and she wishes that her mother could have been the heroine of an episode. In this wonderful memoir, Pasquarello has succeeded in not only making her mother Queen for a Day—but Queen for a Lifetime!