Photo by Petra Liljestrand
Mary Magagna is the first in her family to join a union, strike, march in protests, hitchhike to Woodstock (the best one), get a divorce, write a doctoral dissertation, titled, “The Father, the Phallus, and the Sword,” and the second to be a nurse.
She is the daughter of a mother who believed animals, plants, and people were interchangeable and a father who loved to visualize ledger sheets so that he could add numbers together in ordered columns in his head.
Her people are from Northern Italy and Austria. Her mother was an immigrant who entered the USA illegally. Her father was first-generation American.
She is not Irish, but she could be if she put her mind to it.
She is under the influence of Roman Catholicism, is a practicing Buddhist, and she wrote this book.
She always squints even if she wears her glasses.
