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.
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