MARBLEHEAD – Author Catherine Marenghi will be presenting at the Abbot Public Library Wednesday August 17th at 7 p.m.
Raised in a primitive one-room farmhouse with no indoor plumbing, the fourth of five children, Catherine Marenghi begins her life in poverty and isolation. She leaves home at the age of seventeen. A decade later, she is a successful journalist with the means to buy her family their first decent house.
But the past will not be put to rest so easily. Catherine unravels a web of long-buried family secrets, and a terrible betrayal that robbed her family of the home that was rightfully theirs. And she finally uncovers the story her parents never shared: the gladiolus farm that was once their dream.
At once lyrical and raw, unflinching in its detail, Glad Farm is an iconic American story of renewal and reinvention, and the mythic power of a house to define our destiny.
Marblehead resident Catherine Marenghi brings to her writing a poet’s sensibility and the clear eyes of a 
journalist. In addition to her memoir and award-winning poetry, she has also written two nonfiction works. A native of Milford, MA, the granddaughter of Italian immigrants, Catherine writes with a profound sense of place and a fascination with the power of house, home, and family bonds.
Book Sales to Benefit Habitat for Humanity
Glad Farm has received advance praise from former President Jimmy Carter, whose personal involvement in Habitat for Humanity’s ministry brought the organization national visibility and sparked interest in Habitat’s work across the nation.
“Because our houses define us, because they inhabit us in more ways than we inhabit them, a significant portion of the proceeds of this book will benefit Habitat for Humanity.” – Catherine Marenghi
The Abbot Public Library is located at 235 Pleasant Street, Marblehead, MA 01945. For additional information, please call 781-631-1481 or visit www.abbotlibrary.org.
