Goodnight, My Angel

Goodnight, My Angel is the fictional account of the life of an Italian/ American woman named, Susan Deligrossi. Susan was born to second generation Italian immigrants and raised in a small Central New York factory town during the 1940's and 1950's,entered high school in the 1960's, just as the world began to change forever. Susan lived in a tightly knit ethnic neighborhood, where she was protected, safe and secure in the only world that she had ever known. Things begin to change for her when she falls deeply in love with Robbie O'Neil, an affluent Irish boy from the other side of the tracks. Susan and Robbie are doomed from the beginning. Her family was vehemently opposed to the match. Forced to go their separate ways, Robbie and Susan become the victims of a sad love story. Robbie goes off to Cornell University and Susan travels to a college in Pennsylvania, hoping to escape the neighborhood and her father, who she once adored and learns to hate. Robbie and Susan both marry other people and Susan gives birth to three children. Her youngest child, Amy, diagnosed with a rare congenital heart defect teaches everyone, especially her mother how to love, deeply and unconditionally. Susan faces many challenges: the horrors of the Viet Nam War, emotional set backs, betrayal, adultery, an unplanned pregnancy, the untimely death of a child, unsettling secrets from the past, divorce, and her mother's dementia. Just when things begin to improve in her life, fate hands her another heartache. Over and over again, Susan fights to pick up the pieces as her life begins to shatter. Clearing each hurdle, she endures, grieves and moves on. Finally, as hope replaces despair, Susan is ready to love again until the last bitter turn of events changes everything forever.