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Author: Pamela Schoenewaldt | Website
Pamela Schoenewaldt lived for ten years in a small town outside Naples, Italy. Her short stories have appeared in literary magazines in England, France, Italy and the United States. Her play, “Espresso con mia madre” (Espresso with my mother) was performed at Teatro Cilea in Naples. She taught writing for the University of Maryland, European Division and the University of Tennessee and now lives in Knoxville, Tennessee with her husband, Maurizio Conti, a medical physicist, and their dog Jesse, a philosopher.
Published Works & Book Reviews
When We Were Strangers
"If you leave Opi, you'll die with strangers," Irma Vitale's mother always warned. Even after her beloved mother's passing, 20-year-old Irma longs to stay in her Abruzzo mountain village, plying her needle. But too poor and plain to marry and subject to growing danger in her own home, she risks rough passage to America and workhouse servitude to achieve her dream of making dresses for gentlewomen.
In the raw immigrant quarters and with the help of an entrepreneurial Irish serving girl, ribbon-decked Polish ragman and austere Alsatian dressmaker, Irma begins to stitch together a new life . . . until her peace and self are shattered in the charred remains of the Great Chicago Fire. Enduring a painful recovery, Irma reaches deep within to find that she has even more to offer the world than her remarkable ability with a needle and thread.
Reviewer: Books4Betty
Review: Apr 5, 2011
Genre(s): Mainstream / General
When We Were Strangers, written by Pamela Schoenewaldt, is a novel that will stick with readers' days after they've finished reading it. From the first page to its last, When We Were Strangers will break hearts and then mend them back together.
This powerfully written novel about a young woman, Irma, who journey's from the small Italian village, Opi, to America, is everything a reader should want in a book.