Time to Journey Home by Michael Pedretti

Read about the author's journey home - travel with him as he encounters the small valley in Northern Italy that his ancestors called home for a thousand years before immigrating to a small Midwestern town in the mid-nineteenth century. There he discovered his ancestors were a kind, creative and empathetic people. As he learned more about them he became inspired to write a twelve book epic (Time to Journey Home is Book I) covering many generations in a family saga that highlights their contributions to and perspectives on life. In a separate section the author makes a plea for a new epic form – one that celebrates woman and kindness instead of man and war, the most common theme of epics of old. He asserts that epics have always defined who a people are while also providing a moral compass for how the people could and should live. Also, included is a detailed history of Genoa, Wisconsin, where his ancestors settled in the mid 1850s and where the author avows a spray drift of calmness flows through the coulee mingling with the spirit of kindness and empathy that their offspring inherited to create a way of life that inspired this book and the entire series of twelve books titled The Story of Our Stories that will follow. The appendix includes a genealogical history of the author tracing some lines of the family back to the 1500s.