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by Lou Basenese (Author)
Between the Sauce, Stars and Heaven is a lushly told memoir of one family's century-long climb from a sun-baked village in southern Italy to the Sunday-scented kitchens of New Jersey-and the sky-wide promise of America.
From twelve dollars sewn into a steerage coat to a panoramic front porch that became the Basenese command center, Lou Basenese Jr. traces four generations of grit, garlic, and grace. He introduces readers to:
- Gabriel & Donata-the Ellis-Island newlyweds who traded olives and poverty for factory whistles and freedom.
- Uncle Angelo-roguish charmer, porch pick-pocket, legend gone too soon.
- Louie & Eva-parents who stitched faith into every meal and discipline into every heartbeat.
- Christopher-a son lost to fentanyl poisoning, whose final letter still rewrites the author's soul.
Along the way Lou survives Wall-Street boardrooms, a shattering business collapse, and a twelve-minute death on a California sidewalk-revived only by the relentless CPR of his wife, Laura.
Threaded through with handwritten recipes, small-town football nights, and a near-audible chorus of Italian-American aunts, Between the Sauce, Stars and Heaven is a testament to second chances, table-wide forgiveness, and the stubborn belief that even the heaviest stories can rise-like a ladle of Sunday sauce-toward heaven.
