Hudson Valley Bookshelf
What We've Lost
by Cindy A. Reid

Review of What Zizi Gave Honeyboy by Gerald Celente. New York: William Morrow, hardcover, 181 pages, $23.95

The subtitle of Gerald Celente's new book is "A True Story About Love, Wisdom, and the Soul of America," which goes a long way towards explaining what this book is really about. Celente, a Rhinebeck resident, is the publisher of the The Trends Journal, a quarterly newsletter and the author of two previously published non-fiction books, Trends 2000 and Trend Tracking. He is the "Honeyboy" of the title and his beloved 83-year-old Italian aunt is "Zizi." What Zizi gave Honeyboy is a large dose of love, plenty of mouth-watering Italian food, and good conversation regarding the state of the world.

The book is structured around Celente's frequent visits to his widowed aunt's home in Yonkers, where she always has homemade delicacies and the scrabble board ready for him. While he eats, cleans the kitchen and keeps her company during her evening cigarette, the events of her life come up in conversation. Some of Zizi's story is incredibly sad, such as the untimely death of her 3-year son Cosmo. Many tales tell of a vanished world of close knit Italian immigrant families in the boroughs of New York. The stories provide Celente with an opportunity to expand upon Zizi's observations, as together they contrast their shared past with the reality of life in the United States today.

Because Celente's business is to predict trends, he has a depth of knowledge he is able to utilize in dissecting the basic question of where we are now and where we are headed. But it takes the old world wisdom of his elderly aunt to remind him of where we came from and he aptly explores the qualities we have "lost" as a society. As he says, "These turn of the century immigrants and their children were able to keep alive the customs of the homeland. But by the time my generation came of age, the traces of our roots had begun to vanish."

Sandwiched in-between the stories and bittersweet memories Celente makes the case that we have lost ground as a society in many areas. I found his remarks on the topic of the country's soaring economic achievement and its subsequent nonstop workday particularly compelling. "It can be argued that while people living in poor nations lack our material comforts, many of them possess the wealth of community and the family prosperity that has dissipated in America and among her people. Although America is wealthy financially, emotionally she is deep in debt, without a surplus in sight."

Food is a running theme, and rightly so based on his descriptions of Zizi's meals. My favorite was the pepper and egg sandwich, a delicious egg frittata of hot and sweet Italian peppers, garlic and Parmesan cheese served on Italian bread. Celente scores points with his analysis of how corrupt the American food supply has become and why.

The strength of the book lies in Celente's obvious affection for his aunt and the genuinely compelling stories of their family. At the same time his social commentary made for thoughtful reading because he is able to back up his nostalgia with facts and statistics that often prove his points regarding what our society has discarded and how that loss affects us today.