The Sixth Grandfather

In a series of interviews an American Plains Indian describes his life and discusses the traditional religious beliefs of the Indians

My Grandfather's Altar is an oral-literary narrative account of Richard Moves Camp's family history and traditions.

This is the story of the American Civil War told from the perspective of a Private. It is the tale of one man who attempted to make a difference in a conflict that tore his nation apart. Thomas Tilden Bailey—a Private in that epic struggle—tells the all-too-familiar story of a single soldier and the difficulties he faced. From his problems with the bureaucracy of military life, to struggles within his own ranks, to the realities a captured soldier faces in an escalating conflict, Bailey reminds us that in any war it is often the travails of the unknown soldiers that make the best stories.

In 1950s Chicago, a boy hides in his closet to escape a father's habitual rage. There he conjures up another paternal figure in his artistic Italian grandfather, Canio Grieco. With his wondrous tricks and stories of "Italy," his library and drawings, his baseball and opera, Canio becomes the model of creativity for the lonely, introverted grandson who learns to survive through ingenuity, imagination, and electricity. Canio's Secret is a coming-of-age story about young Greg's struggle to find solace in his mother's Catholicism and break free of his father's anger. Told through intimate portraits of parents and grandparents, nuns and janitors, friends and local characters, and their unsettling, often humorous, encounters, it is also the vibrant portrait of a multi-ethnic neighborhood soon to be scattered by white flight. As the older writer ponders his grandfather's influence, the memoir becomes a meditation on Canio's enigmatic advice, spoken in the summer of 1953: "Happiness is all that's required."