My Cousin the Saint

Like millions of other Italians in the early twentieth century, Justin Catanoso’s grandfather came to the United States to escape poverty and hardship. Nearly a hundred years later, Justin knows little of his family back in the Old Country. But everything changes in 2001, when he discovers that his grandfather’s cousin, Padre Gaetano Catanoso, is to be canonized as a saint.

Justin embarks on a quest to connect with his extended family in southern Italy. In the process, he learns about the parallel lives of the saint in Calabria and his grandfather in New Jersey. He also confronts his tenuous Catholic faith as he is confronted with miracle workers, saint makers, and his own brother’s terminal cancer.

More than a biography, more than an immigrant memoir, more than a chronicle of renewed faith, My Cousin the Saint is a testament to the challenge of being Catholic in twenty-first century America and a love letter to a family now reunited across oceans and years.

Justin Catanoso is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and teaches writing and editing at Wake Forest University. Since 1998, he has served as executive editor of the Business Journal, a weekly based in the Triad region of North Carolina. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, BusinessWeek and on National Public Radio. He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, songwriter Laurelyn Dossett, and their daughters, Emilia, Rosalie, and Sophia.

“Justin Catanoso went to Italy in search of his canonized cousin. In finding the story of his own family, he has written a warm and candid memoir that I admire.”

- Gay Talese, author of Unto the Sons