CHARLIE GARGIULO, Legends of Little Canada: Aunt Rose, Harvey’s Bookland, and My Captain Jack. Lowell, MA: Loom Press, 2023. ISBN: 0931507537
reviewed by Laurie Meunier Graves
Most coming-of-age memoirs are written from an adult’s point of view, a back-and-forth journey that toggles between mature observations and youthful responses to various experiences, good and bad. In Legends of Little Canada: Aunt Rose, Harvey’s Bookland, and My Captain Jack, Charlie Gargiulo takes a different approach. The book is written from a young boy’s point of view—heartfelt, breezy, and irreverent. What Legends of Little Canada lacks in adult perspective is more than made up for by a vigorous energy that propels the story to its sad but hopeful conclusion.
Legends of Little Canada begins on a Saturday morning in March in 1963 when, with a kiss and a wave, Charlie’s father goes to work as he would any other day. However, on that Saturday evening in March, he doesn’t come home. Charlie’s father has left his family, throwing them into poverty. Like so many women of that time, Charlie’s mother is a stay-at-home mom, and when Charlie’s father leaves them, she can no longer afford to live in Dracut, Massachusetts.
Instead, Charlie and his mother must move to nearby Lowell, the big city, to live “on the second floor of a large three-story gray wooden apartment building that had two entrances.” In the hall there is a shared bathroom with no tub or shower. The apartment is in a neighborhood called Little Canada, where in the 1800s, thousands of French Canadians came to work in the mills lining the Merrimack River. Charlie’s mother grew up in Little Canada so the move is a sort of homecoming for her. But not for Charlie, who is terrified and worries constantly about what will happen to him on the city streets. He has been to Lowell many times, to that very same apartment building, to visit his beloved Aunt Rose, and he recalls how the city kids gave him “the evil eye.” Charlie is convinced that it is only a matter of time before these kids will jump him and beat him up.
Charlie is not wrong to worry. Soon after he and his mother move to Lowell, Charlie, from the safety of his apartment, witnesses a vicious fight in a parking lot below. A bully named Roger beats a small kid until his face is a bloody mess. Later, Charlie learns that the small kid, Dicky, was beaten so badly that he had to go to the hospital. Charlie figures it is only a matter of time before he becomes one of Roger’s victims, and he refuses to go outside, much to his mother’s dismay. Eventually, though, on an errand for his Aunt Rose, he leaves the shelter of the apartment building to go to the store. There he meets a boy named Richie, who shares Charlie’s love of comic books and becomes his best friend. Richie soon brings Charlie to Harvey’s Bookland, a “magical place that would change [his] life.” Harvey’s Bookland, run by the kindhearted Harvey, is chock-full of comic books, records, and books, a place where Charlie and Richie are allowed to browse as long as they want, a place where free comic books are given to the boys. Just because.
Charlie comes to think of Harvey’s Bookland as his sanctuary, but it’s also where he learns some disturbing news from a colorful character named Captain Jack: there are plans afoot to tear down Little Canada. Unfortunately, 1963 was the time of the federally-funded urban renewal in the United States, when apartment buildings in poor sections were torn down in cities large and small. According to National Geographic, between 1955 and 1966, more than 300,000 people were displaced. Promises were made to build new apartment complexes, but those promises were not always kept.
All of this—the departure of Charlie’s father, the move to Lowell, the threat posed by Roger the bully, the introduction to Harvey’s Bookland, and the news about the potential destruction of Little Canada—is introduced by page 23. Charlie Gargiulo doesn’t waste any time in immersing the reader in young Charlie’s life, in a world that is both comforting and threatening.
The day inevitably arrives when Roger finds and confronts Charlie in the very same parking lot where Dicky was attacked. But unlike Dicky, Charlie has been preparing for this day, guided by Bruce Tegner’s Complete Book of Self-Defense, a paperback Charlie finds at—where else?—Harvey’s Bookland. What follows is an exciting fight filled with vivid and bloody details, where Charlie proves his mettle.
After the fight, Charlie no longer fears the neighborhood, and for a time, Legends of Little Canada resembles a French New Wave movie, directed, say, by François Truffaut. Charlie and his friends play games in the street while Aunt Rose watches from her window. President Kennedy is assassinated, and the neighborhood mourns. Christmas brings a wonderful sense of community, with folks in Charlie’s apartment building opening their doors for a big ongoing celebration. Charlie nearly drowns swimming. Charlie and his pals, entranced by the Beatles, form a band.
In addition, Charlie introduces readers to his extended family on both his mother’s and father’s sides. Charlie makes it clear that he considers himself Italian, like his father, rather than French like his mother. No doubt this is because of his last name and because he is male. Charlie, as many children do, blames himself for his parents’ separation. While this seems unlikely, readers never do learn why Charlie’s father decided to leave for work and never come home.
Unfortunately, the time soon comes when urban renewal exerts its inexorable force, destroying the neighborhood and forcing folks to leave their homes. No spoiler alert is needed here. At the beginning of Legends of Little Canada, there is a map of Charlie’s neighborhood with the following caption: This story takes place in my corner of Little Canada, which was demolished in 1964. Right from the jump, it is clear what will happen to the homes in Little Canada and to places such as Harvey’s Bookland: nothing good.
To make matters worse, Charlie must also deal with his mother’s alcoholism and the anger that threatens to overwhelm him. Here he has help from his Aunt Rose, who always sees the best in him and maintains that Charlie’s anger comes from a place of passion and strength, not selfishness. And when Charlie, in desperation, starts roaming the streets at night, assistance comes from an unexpected source—Captain Jack, an alcoholic who is nonetheless wise and helps protect Charlie from the dangers of the street.
As much history as memoir, Legends of Little Canada, is a vivid portrait of a particular time and place in a midsize city in New England. This specificity has important, more universal resonances, however. Charlie’s narrative could apply to many other urban areas where communities, poor in money but rich in spirit, were torn apart. Legends of Little Canada—warm, shrewd, humane, but never sentimental—gives names and voices to displaced people who are too often ignored and forgotten. But, in the end, this is Charlie’s story, told in his inimitable voice.