The Deafening Silence: A Memoir

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Summary: The Deafening Silence: A memoir
Review: I found the story powerfully told. It is a story about eleven-year old Rosemary who lives in south Philadelphia. She plasy hop-scotch, jacks and ball, and visits her father's produce store, called Mike's. Rosemary loves to watch him tease women, argue with men and give produce to nuns.
His store bustles with the force of his personality-except when the gangster looking men arrive. They register as unimportant until Rosemary's father plunges a knife into his chest.
He dies leaving Rosemary's mother with twelve chidren, youngest age three. As word spreads of his suicide the neighborhood, even Blind Man Joe betrays Rosemary saying they can no longer be friends.
The family moves to an Irish Catholic neighborhood where the name, Pasquarello, becomes another obstacle to overcome. Against this background is rage at her father, also mother demanding The Deafening Silence surrounding his suicide. Rosemary navigates realities such as going to bed hungry, a teenager forced out to work.
As the young woman's heart emerges and with the encouragement of her fiance she challenges The Deafening Silence. On Rosemary's wedding day, her mother reveals family secrets.
The Deafening Silence: A father's suicide, a mother's indomitable strength, a daughter's odyssey through the mire of rage and abandonment into a young woman's triumph of love.