I wrote the book about those trips: a mix of travelogue, personal history, and little anecdotes, with some humor. We went back four more times over the course of six years (he is now 14). I don’t know how much of that was accomplished, but I loved showing him around. I also hoped he would learn some Italian. I’ve been here ever since. When my son was seven years old, I realized suddenly that I hadn’t been back to Italy in ten years, and I went, taking him along. I thought he would learn about Italy and acquire a feel for what it’s like. I was born in Italy (Milano), lived in Brazil two different times as a child, and came to the United States to attend college. Tell us more about your decision to take a trip to Italy with your young son and write about it.

Olga has kindly agreed to give away one copy of the book to the reader who is keenest to find out the answers to these questions (see giveaway details below).īut before we get into that, let’s talk to Olga and hear some more about the travels that inspired her to put pen to paper…Ĭiao, Olga! Let’s begin at the beginning. So, how did she find the Italy of today: did she still fit in? And what did her sidekick, George, the blonde all-American kid, make of his mammina‘s homeland? Did he enjoy these escapades or feel puzzled by his mother’s motives? Perhaps the story he saw himself in wasn’t Steinbeck’s at all, but a modern Italian version of Don Quixote, in which he occupied the role of a skeptical Sancho Panza? Also like Steinbeck, she had the desire to see her native land again. Olga says she’s no Steinbeck, though she does prefer a plain and honest writing style.

As she tells it, she was driving through Doylestown, Pennsylvania, one day when Steinbeck’s travelogue popped into her head, and she knew she wanted to call her book “Travels with George.” When she announced this to her son (the “George” of the title), he said: “So I’m the dog?”Īs you can gather from this story, mother and son make quite a pair. Born in Italy, Olga went to Brown University and currently lives in rural New Jersey. When I first stumbled across Olga Vannucci’s memoir, Travels with George, I wondered whether the title alluded to John Steinbeck’s book Travels with Charley, about his road trip across America in the company of his French standard poodle, Charley.

Whereabouts by Brandi Dawn Henderson