The Santora family returns. SanGiovanni’s sequel picks up exactly where the first book deposited them: somewhere between affectionate chaos and outright farce. Large Italian-American family, loud, processing the fact that one of their own is gay—which means processing it loudly and with no internal filter whatsoever.
The comedy doesn’t come from queerness itself. It comes from how the Santoras respond to queerness with the same unfiltered certainty they bring to everything else. They want to understand. They don’t understand. They try anyway. Their trying is the joke, but it’s never mean—it’s the kind of family humor that works only because the affection is actually there underneath the noise.
Intergenerational dynamics drive the book. Grandmothers alongside parents alongside the queer person themselves, everyone with strong opinions and no hesitation about expressing them. The comedy lands because it’s rooted in recognition: this is what family actually does. They show up loud and wrong and well-meaning and exhausting, and somehow you love them anyway.
SanGiovanni mines that territory for genuine laughs. The farce is real but it’s not contemptuous. The family is ridiculous and they’re also the only people who matter. Both things are true at once.
Details
| ISBN: 9781932859874 |
| Subtitle: |
| Genre: Fiction; Black Interest |
| Subject(s): Contemporary; Family Life; Fiction; Humorous; Lesbian; Lgbtq+; Romance |
| Publication Date: 2011-12-13 |
| Original Publication Date: |
| Publisher: Bywater Books |
| Language: English |
| Format: Kindle Edition |
| Pages: 264 |
| Rating: |
| Notes: Mari SanGiovanni is an American comedian and author whose Santora family series blends lesbian fiction with Italian-American family comedy. Camptown Ladies is the second book in the series, following Greetings from Jamaica, Wish You Were Queer (2009). |
| Book_ID: 106134 |