What 'm Reading: Crossing Ocean Parkway

At the end of my undergraduate career, Professor Regenspan and I had a conversation about a book she had recently read, Crossing Ocean Parkway by Marianna De Marco Torgovnick. The compilation of essays is divided in two parts, the first focusing autobiographically on Torgovnick’s experiences and family background and the second offering literary analysis from the perspective of an “Italian American Daughter.”

For some mid-summer intellectual stimulation, I truly enjoyed Crossing Ocean Parkway. Torgovnick’s work is very readable and accessible, yet her essays are also so reflective that they prompt careful self-reflection in the reader as well. This had actually been the hinge of that conversation several years ago – using the author’s framework of Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn as a cultural and socio-economic divide, from where had we crossed over, and what were we crossing over to?