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...in memory of beloved friends, Tina Urnezis and William Backus

"I Love You Like a Tomato" is a brilliant book about the immigrant experience, but it is far more than that. Marie Jordan (Giordano) has a special gift for the first person voice, giving her narrator, ChiChi, a ravishly eloquent sensual consiousness and the best sort of wit, based on fresh and true observation of how we all live our lives. As a result, we deeply and personally share this family's experiences. In short, I LOVE YOU LIKE A TOMATO is both a delightful read and a true work of art."
--Robert Olen Butler
Pulitzer Prixe wining author

"Marie Giordano has written a wondrous book heaped high with joy and sorrow, warm and spicy as a bowl of meatball zuppa. I've long since closed the book, but the characters have been walking around with me ever since."
--Greg Garrett -- Author, "Free Bird"

I LOVE YOU LIKE A TOMATO is by turns sweet and sad, poignant and hilarious -- in short, the perfect blend one looks for in a good book. Combine this fact with ChiChi's wonderfully true voice, and we end up with a coming-of-age novel that stands full and alive and well worth the read. Three cheers for volume one of the ChiChi trilogy!
--Bret Lott
Author, "Jewel"

"An original voice, an incredible talent. Every word shines like a polished tomato. I could taste and smell the suasage, the summering sauces, and the romano cheese on every page. Giordano stirs her unique words and phrases without once letting the pot burn dry. Her use of language is in the tradition of Annie Proulx, Arundhati Roy and Toni Morrison. I loved this book!
--David Fickett
Author, "Nectar"

"A fresh, sharp look at childhood and beyond, told in sparkling language by a very gifted and promising first novelist. This book is a treasure and I'm grateful it happened across my path."
-- Jill Grimsley
Author, "Winter Birds," "My Drowning"

"Giordano produces a raucous, crowd-pleasing account of a Sicilian immigrant girl who grows up in the Twin Cities after WW2"
-- Publishers Weekly

"Inspiring"
-- Library Journal

Purchase your paperback edition of "I LOVE YOU LIKE A TOMATO" in all bookstores, order from Amazon or click here. For a preview of the book, click here!

As you know, I write and teach under three different names:* *See Writing Life #7, Spring 2003, for explanation of my three names.

"We are the unknown princesses and princes of daughters and sons carrying out the task of wooing butterflies, dolphins and elves with our beads of commas, our apostrophes and wreathes, our songs, our exclamation marks, our limitless perspicacious power."

from "Perspicacious Power" SLOW DANCE ON STILTS

"... that kind of woman who can partner with silence while driving the 405 to Los Angeles until the voices come, the ones that calm the storms and sing without chains ..."

from "That Kind of Woman" SLOW DANCE ON STILTS

" ... to discover the purl of Good and go on dancing, never to miss what’s missing, never to stop what's stopping; you’re on top topping, and you’re certain there is no life but this."

from "Time Limit" SLOW DANCE ON STILTS

"Don’t tell us how we tick. Such times of blessed blindness to the pea-prick nod of Mars and Saturn & a millennium that will cost us plenty, we’re chock full of happiness."

from "Lost in Space" SLOW DANCE ON STILTS

Be sure to check the latest Writersword. Click here.