Bold as Brass

Bold as Brass is a collection of twenty-four stories set in Waterbury, Connecticut, once Brass Capital of the World. All the stories are works of fiction. They are the author's look into long-ago lives, both of her Irish Catholic family and of imagined characters who might have joined them in their daily goings on, in a period of time that stretches from the thirties through the fifties. Whether the characters are swimming at Scovill's Dam on a hot summer day and wondering what is beneath that water or telling stories around the kitchen table on a rainy afternoon, making a pilgrimage to Saint Anne de Beaupre in Canada to request a baby or bearing gifts to a birthday celebration with mixed results, their stories are presented in a way that shows how insightful commonplace occurrences can prove to be. Bold as Brass is the authors second book, deliciously anecdotal, and a true companion to her first book, The View from Cracker Hill, a memoir of 1950s Waterbury. These are stories of working-class people, of whom Betty notes in "Saturday Night Swells," the idea that "ordinary people can have extraordinary moments is a wonderful discovery." The author says, "I echo Betty's sentiment, and I am delighted to share these stories."