Ian MacAllen's new book is a perfect beach read for me because I can discover the origin of all of the yummy Italian food I avoided eating so I could sashay down the Fire Island boardwalk in my speedo (OK, a square cut - it was a rough winter and she's got the love handles to prove it!).

Ian, who featured me recently in his English Kills Review column and who pens the amazing "This Week in Indie Book stores" for the Rumpus, is a great supporter of authors so I was thrilled to shout out his work. After being smitten with the great retro cover art (with the new edition of Skyscraper I've been a bit obsessed with cover art) I decided to chat him up about the origins of Red Sauce which drops April 4.

"My wife and I were eating dinner at this red sauce place in the west village -- it closed back in 2019 -- and were getting pretty drunk on the carafe of house red wine. We were talking about food origins, and especially in relation to Italy. We both are half Italian so we grew up with a lot of those immigrant traditions, but we also have both been to Italy and realized how different the food was. So after dinner I got home and started drunk- Googling. That was only partly satisfying, and later in the week I went to the Strand and picked up a couple of books, but none of them really got to the heart of the issue.

By then I had identified two main inquiries: what differentiates red sauce from Italian food, and what are the origins of those recipes. Just raising those questions probably should have been the give away that I was writing a book and not just casually researching things. From that point forward I started taking notes and getting deeper into the research, and then I wrote most of the manuscript before putting together a proposal because I really wasn't even sure I knew how to write a nonfiction book."

Stop by the NYC launch event:
April 5
7pm
Tradesman Bar
RSVP: https://redsauce.splashthat.com/

Grab a copy or see the author live at one of his readings. 
WORD Bookstore
Bookshop.org
Barnes & Noble
Amazon

May 9, 8pm
Franklin Park Reading Series
Franklin Park, Brooklyn

May 11, 7PM
WORD Bookstore
Jersey City

Keep up to date with all the latest news, new events, and more at RedSauceAmerica.com

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