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Beat Scene Magazine Reviews Gargiulo Book
Charlie Gargiulo’s Lowell memoir, Legends of Little Canada, was recently reviewed in Beat Scene magazine, a UK print publication the covers the Beat Generation (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, et al). Here’s the review, reposted with permission of Beat Scene:
Reading this new book one gets the feeling it has been around 60 years in the making. Written from the viewpoint of an eleven year old Charlie Gargiulo, living in ‘Little Canada.’ It’s around 1962. Now this is – or was, a distinct district of Lowell back then.
You may recall the writer who so dominates Beat Scene magazine, a chap called Jack Kerouac, writing with a passion about this area. He didn’t invent it for novelistic purposes; it was a real place where thousands of people, often ‘French
Canadians’ made their home from home. Tightly knit streets, you might say it was densely populated, a community where people knew each other. Lowell is a little like this, even today. People came to live and work here from all over. The textile mills were a big draw, offering steady employment. Jack Kerouac’s mother worked in them. The Greek section, the Portuguese area, the Irish sector and so on.
Charlie Gargiulo paints us a vibrant picture of his ‘Little Canada.’ His escapades, his fears on moving there as a young boy. It could be tough, for kids it was their patch. Newcomers often had to prove themselves, get integrated. Young
Charlie ran the gauntlet, faced down the few bullies and made a lot of friends. He tells a wonderful story, much happiness, the camaraderie of his pals, their gang, the street games. All in an area so close to the big church where Jack Kerouac worshipped and confided in the Parish Priest Father Spike Morrissette. That church, coincidentally, now out of use, a mini cathedral, but destined to become a Jack Kerouac cultural centre.
“For the next month, everyone in our gang felt like a death row prisoner counting down the days to execution. Minus the getting executed part. Each day felt sadder and sadder, especially when we found that Ronnie and his family were not only moving away from Little Canada, but also from Lowell. His dad had rented a place about fifteen miles north in Nashua, New Hampshire. ”
Charlie was a comic book lover and one of his special places was Harvey’s Bookland. Harvey was a well liked good hearted character for Charlie and his pals. Well loved by all – anyone who liked used bookstores – I’ve bought a few things there myself A thoroughly decent guy. His bookstore survived into the 1990s.
Legends of Little Canada is a book – wonderful storytelling as it is – on a mission. To put right the wrongs of the early 1960s when ‘Urban Renewal’ raised its ugly head. When Little Canada was – block by block – demolished – stealthily by greedy builders
and a compliant Lowell Council – and the enclave was no more. It all happened by degrees. Families were dispersed to other regions of Lowell, other towns, Worcester, Lawrence. Friendships never given a second thought, just chasing the dollars.
As an eleven year old boy Charlie Gargiulo displays a remarkable awareness of the wrongs that are being perpetrated by powerful organisations. But in with all that are his boyhood, his pals, his beloved aunt, his mother –
the nagging absence of a father who vanished but who – Charlie hopes – will one day return. That
understanding of what happened to Little Canada has stayed with Gargiulo. An example of this is when as a by then young man – when I first encountered him in Lowell, he fought against a repeat of local demolition in The Acre’ – another district of Lowell, home to working people, long established. He formed ‘Coalition For A Better Acre’ and they beat off more corporate schemes and ‘The Acre’ was saved. It has been his life’s work. He loves Lowell. And he loves helping the working people of the place even more.
Now all these years later he feels it was time to change the narrative, the spun story of how the destruction of Little Canada was all for the good. Charlie sees the callous destruction of a community and the lies and this is his story. It needed to be written.
****
Legends of Little Canada is available online from Loom Press and in person at lala books on Market Street in downtown Lowell.
Lowell Folk Festival
This is great recognition. I can well imagine “Legends of Little Canada” having relevancy and traction in the UK, where many people grew up in council estates and tenement flats, and some saw traditions being stripped away. It continues to happen today, but the real estate is often mental, emotional.
Charlie, Congratulations!
While this is from the other side of the big pond, it’s got to feel great to be associated with Jack K. And it’s also great press for the Spindle City and a justified shout out to Charlie for not only his book, but his lifelong contributions to the Lowell neighborhoods.
Legends of Little of Canada is a great booki. I have read it several times, and it should be up there with Catcher in the Rye, as a classic for young readers. It tells the real story of what happens to real families in “urban renewal,” and how it affects real people. It shows in detail how such top down schemes destroy and even kill people whose names we often never know.
Congratulations, Charles. That’s a fine review for a deserving book. I really enjoyed it.
UMaine Orono’s LE FORUM published this “reader’s appreciation” in its spring-summer 2024 edition. May I take the liberty of posting it here? Our “appreciation” will never grow old.
A reader’s appreciation of
Charlie Gargiulo’s
Legends of Little Canada
– Louise Peloquin
Legends of Little Canada is a passionate love letter with a profound message on
“human progress” and “the common good” and how these can be twisted to serve lowly
purposes.
It’s a blast-from-the-past time travel into childhood and pre-adolescence, a prequel
to Ti-Jean’s Maggie Cassidy.
It is a must-read for anyone who was born in Lowell, has lived in Lowell, has worked
in Lowell or is curious about the mill town once dubbed “the Venice of America” which in-
spired visitor Charles Dickens.
The author shies away from labelling himself as a “professional writer.” But what,
precisely, is that? Someone who fills a blank page with words enthusiastic and fresh enough
to morph a slim volume into a page-turner has to have some writing skills. The text has
all of the ingredients – fun, action, drama, suspense, human interest, violence, tragedy but,
most of all, love. You will not find any spoliers here. You readers have to discover the other
secret ingredients on yourown.
For years, colorful anecdotes about Little Canada thrilled those who were lucky
enough to hear Charlie Gargiulo recount them in person. Transferred to the printed page,
they make him a permanent story-teller and thus, a writer.
Those who enter into Legends of Little Canada get to hang out with Charlie’s gang
where they will meet buddies and bullies, beloved family members and benevolent strang-
ers, givers and crooks, educators and profiteers. The reader will also hear about reformers full of dire intentions wrapped up in fake generosity
and noble goals. These dealers of destruction end up being exposed as the real boogeymen in the tale. Like charlatans offering relief by
pulling, one by one, teeth which could have been saved with a little care and repair, they choose to pull down homes, one by one, and turn
a vibrant neighborhood into a painfully cavernous void.
On a lighter note, let’s not forget that younger readers will discover the meaning of loyalty as well as fun street games with
neighborhood pals. Older readers will bask in a past that has never really disappeared in the collective consciousness. Whether or not
the readers have shared Charlie Gargiulo’s experiences, they will find his prose refreshing, invigorating, rejuvenating, like a walk in
a cold cloudburst on a dog day of summer.
A shout-out to Loom Press and its director Paul Marion for publishing this book. Its success will add to Lowell’s clout by casting
a light on another facet of the city’s rich ethnic past.
Reading Legends of Little Canada is not a honey-coated walk down memory lane. It is a memorial to those who have fashioned
us. It is a legacy.
Reading Legends of Little Canada is like re-discovering a favorite Beatles song.
Warmth wells up inside when you hear it.
You can’t help but smile.
You can’t help but cry either.
There are places I’ll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends, I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I’ve loved them all.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney
https://www.loompress.com/store/legends-of-little-canada