Cleveland Magazine          Jim Vickers, Editor

John V. Lonero calls it fiction, but his sister says, “that’s a lotta baloney. I was there.” So the author says in his message “for the reader” in his memoir I USED TO BE ITALIAN (Pacolet Pines Publishing, $15.95) a 350-page book Lonero admits was culled from his days growing up on Cleveland’s West Side in the 1930's and ‘40's.

Lonero takes readers to Walton Elementary School and West Tech, the Aragon Ballroom and Puritas Springs Park. The story travels east to Little Italy and south to Independence before moving on to New York City, where Lonero spent a large portion of his career working in advertising. But its not where the characters end up as much as how the Cleveland of the first half of the 20th century shapes their lives.

The book, which is available in Borders (ISBN 0-9717078-0-4), Barnes and Noble, as well as at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, has won an endorsement from the Cleveland School of the Arts as a text in its creative-writing classes. (See letter on following page)