Under the Shadow of History: Four Dates for "Suosso's Lane" Before the Election

            Given the prominence of terrorist attacks, political unrest both internationally in the US, and the election season targeting of immigrant groups, 2016 is growing remarkably similar to the year 1920 when Nicola Sacco and Plymouth resident Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested in a climate of violence and political repression.             I have some program dates to present "Suosso's Lane," a novel based on the scandalously unjust trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti for a murder most people believe they did not commit, in the next few weeks.
             I'm taking part in a new book program at Milton Public Library on Sunday, Oct. 16, called “Fall Into Reading: Meet Local Authors.” The authors will have an opportunity to introduce themselves and their book to the public. And each of us will have a table on which to set up our books, meet with potential readers, offer books for sale, sign them, or just hang around. The event takes place from 2 to 4 p.m.; the library is located at 476 Canton Ave., Milton.            The next evening, Monday, Oct. 17, I will be speaking on "Suosso's Lane," my novel on the Plymouth, Mass. origins fo the famous Sacco-Vanzetti case, at The James Library and Center for the Arts, 24 West St., Norwell, Mass. The time is 7 p.m.; it's free.             Later in the month I'll continue my rounds of Plymouth Country libraries with a program on "Suosso's Lane" at the West Bridgewater Library, 80 Howard St., on Thursday, Oct. 27, at 2 p.m. 
            Finally, one more date, before the election, on Wednesday, Nov. 2, at 7 p.m., I will be speaking on the book at Pilgrim Hall, the nation's first public museum, at 75 Court St., Plymouth. I hope to see some friendly faces somewhere along the line
             With the Presidential election less than two weeks away on that day, I hope to be able to draw some attention to the lessons of the Sacco-Vanzetti by pointing out some similarities in today's politics to those of the 1920s when Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted of murder largely because of the unpopular beliefs and their nationality. For "Italians" in the first decades of the 20th century, substitute "Mexicans" or "Muslims" and you'll get the picture. 
             The historical events dramatized in “Susosso's Lane,” while they took place a long time ago, raise questions that are still with us. Do we learn from the past? Can we? Perhaps it helps to remember what happened long ago in 1920's America.
             Among the social, political and economic isses that wre important then and are equally important now was the stark and ugly disparity between the very and the masses of the poor, including those who worked long hours in low-paying, exploited labor. In "Suosso's Lane," I have titled an early chapter "America Taught Him Who He Was."
               Though he had begun to think for himself in Italy, and had been worked nedarly to death in pastry factories in Italian cities, Vartolomeo Was not an anarchist when he reached the shores of the "new world" in 1908. By the time he trudged in Plymouth in 1913, his experience of life in this country, at the bottom of the heap where thousands and thousands of immigrants, as well as native-born Americans, struggled to survive, the still young Vanzetti had committed himself to the cause. These experiences, Vanzetti reflects in "Suosso's Lane," "taught him who he was, even before any of all the other things he was: a man, an Italian, an immigrant, a pastry chef, a reading man, a kind man, even a son. He was an anarchist."
           But being that thing that was regarded as a threat,an evil, by a frightened socity in a time of social and politrical stresses, could prove a danger. Especially when combined with another starnd of identity also abhorred by the 1920s American mainstream: an Italian. 
            "I am suffering," Vanzetti told a court in Dedham, Mass.,  after being condemned to death, "because I am a radical, and because I am an Italian." 
            

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 Here's The James Library's PR on the date: 
            “Suosso's Lane” is based on the scandalously unjust trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti for a murder most people believe they did not commit, the international cause-celebre of the 1920’s. The novel follows the search for evidence of Vanzetti’s innocence lost for decades to a government sanctioned frame-up.            Historical events recounted in
          
 
 the international cause-celebre of the 1920’s.
program dates coming up this month.