South of My Dreams

"An exuberant, incisive memoir of dreaming of and inventing a New York life. Alive with telling detail, incandescent prose, and fresh insights. A richly pleasurable read. NYC lovers will find much to feast on."—PW BookLife Review

"A sparkling and quirky look at life as an immigrant academician."—Kirkus Reviews

"A memoir unlike any I've read before, captivating, even Proustian at times for the rich sensory details offered at every turn. Readers will easily fall into this melancholy, mellifluous account of a woman who sought, and found, the freedom to tell her own story on her own terms."—Tahneer Oksman, author of How Come Boys Get to Keep Their Noses?

"How does a Jewish woman from Rome, Italy make her way to the American South? The route is neither easy nor linear. . .. Yes, parts of Clementi's story are harrowing, but there are also surprising moments of dark humor that leaven her quest to find the place where she can be truly free, in a room of her own. South of My Dreams is an original, empowering story of gumption and survival."—Julie Metz, New York Times bestselling author of Perfection and Eva and Eve

"South of My Dreams is a quirky and unusual addition to the memoir literature from a spunky woman born in Rome, who dreams of living in New York, but winds up teaching at a South Carolina university via Poland, Israel, and Massachusetts. Funny and full of insights only an outsider to America can provide, Clementi traces her life and loves across cultures."—Helen Epstein, author of The Long Half-Lives of Love and Trauma and Where She Came From