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Marianne Leone is an actress, essayist, and screenwriter. Her essays have appeared in the Boston Globe, Lit Hub, Ploughshares, Post Road, Bark Magazine, Coastal Living, Solstice, and other places. She is the author of the memoirs Jesse, Ma Speaks Up, and, most recently, Five-Dog Epiphany. She had a recurring role on HBO's The Sopranos and has also appeared in films by David O. Russell, Larry David, John Sayles, Nancy Savoca, and Martin Scorsese. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, actor Chris Cooper, and their two dogs.
I can think of few writers, alive or dead, who can make us laugh out loud in one sentence only to wipe the tears off our cheeks in the next. Marianne Leone achieves this brilliantly in this enduring love song to her Italian mother, illuminating themes as wide ranging as social class, immigrant life, the Catholic Church, the agony of adolescence, marital and maternal and paternal love, and far more. And like all of the best memoirs, Ma Speaks Up carries us back to the fragmented and sometimes elusive beauty of our own lives. This is an exquisitely rendered book by an immensely gifted writer, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. --Andre Dubus III In this entertaining and moving memoir, Marianne Leone has crafted an indelible portrait of her immigrant mother. Like her daughter, Ma is a formidable person--salty, tough-minded, funny, and full of unexpected wisdom. --Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers Equal parts funny, brash, poignant, insightful, sarcastic, joyful, hopeful, and tender, this book will make you laugh and cry. It will make you hungry for Ma's lentil soup. It will make you want to hug your own mother and Marianne and Ma. --Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle I read with enormous pleasure Marianne Leone's book about her mother, Linda, envying the richness and mystery of the family history, at times frightening, infuriating, but also very funny. I finished it in one sitting. Thank you, Marianne Leone, for letting me live with you and your mother. I loved every moment, every word. --Abigail Thomas, author of A Three Dog Life By turns tender and trenchant, this is an indispensable mother-daughter story, a blisteringly honest account of the thorns and brambles that divided an immigrant Italian mama from her talented, truculent actress daughter. Written with wit and verve, Marianne Leone's memoir brings her Ma back to full, vivid life in what becomes, in the end, a belated love poem to this enraging, engaging, passionate spitfire of a woman. --Geraldine Brooks
