The Man In The Garlic Tuxedo [Hardcover]

Thanks to an alert midwife and a martyred fowl, Tony is born in a rural town in Italy. But his homeland cannot contain him, and after bequeathing his tonsils to the Italian Navy, young Tony sets out to explore the world. Eventually, his developing fascination with America gets the best of him, and he settles in the NY/NJ metropolitan area, which proves to be not all that different from the Italy he left behind. There, Tony embarks on his quest for the American dream, befuddling and/or inspiring nearly everyone in his path, especially his own family. Enter a young man, who falls in love with Tony's only daughter and begins his own quest to come to a complete understanding of his multi-talented but often bewildering father-in-law. Follow the exploits of a complex, driven, remarkable, and accidentally hilarious man as seen through the eyes of his son-in-law, who combines stories he's heard with first-hand experiences to try and make sense of his family's paradoxical patriarch. A heartwarming, painfully funny and absolutely true tale about family, The Man in the Garlic Tuxedo explores, among many things, the intricacies of Italian-American culture, the least effective ways to use Twitter and, most important of all, how to properly protect a lemon tree from frost. See how one man develops from baby to Babbo and, with Tony as captain, discover how our own intra-familial idiosyncrasies are ultimately transcended by love and laughter.