FIFTY STEPS

Vincent L D’Aleo recounts his life in his entertaining and often hilarious memoir.

From childhood to college to falling in love to having kids and everything in between, D’Aleo writes of the standout moments from his life. He chronicles the summer Roger Maris hit 61 home runs and he himself caught two long shots playing baseball in the sandlot. He reminisces about his father, a master mason, who as a kid reminded him of Moses coming down the mountain with the Ten Commandments. He traces his relationship with his son and daughter; the terror he felt when his son was born; how parenting soon became natural to him; and the patience he had to have with his daughter, who, as a teenager, was thoroughly embarrassed by him. The strength of D’Aleo’s memoir lies in the balance between the funny retellings of major and minor moments in his life and the insight he has gained from those experiences. But D’Aleo’s memoir isn’t all heartfelt family stories. In the latter half, he expounds on the serendipity of the Louisiana Purchase and how the universe can converge to create good luck, as well as his utter confusion at the popularity of tofu. In the namesake chapter, D’Aleo tells of how a friend who was diagnosed with cancer decided to run a marathon. Knowing no one person could push his wheelchair the whole way, he had every person push him just 50 steps. D’Aleo reminds us that little things can make all the difference in the world. And in the end, a life of little stories and moments and experiences can add up to create something more amazing and special than its individual pieces.

Inspired and comic rendering of the extraordinary in the everyday.