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In Palermo, Sicily, potato croquettes are a favorite street food, much like French fries are in America. There are several […]
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The first time I had rum cake in Italy was in Venice in the 1970s. The waiter wheeled out a […]
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Sometimes the intrigues percolating off stage are more compelling than what’s on stage. And often, these backstage sagas are never, […]
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Baked ziti can be dry and lifeless, or as in this recipe it can be creamy, rich, and bursting with […]
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Pineapple upside-down cake is one of the more toothsome desserts. I’ve discovered, however, that you can significantly improve the richness […]
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Pasta with lentil sauce is one of my Sicilian family’s unusual recipes—a dish that I’ve encountered nowhere else, either in […]
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Dorothy Parker, the Jazz-Age high priestess of the bon mot, is scarcely thought of as a political activist. Yet so […]
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I’m inordinately fussy about my brownies. I like them moist with a deep chocolate flavor, studded with walnuts, and frosted […]
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Frittatas, I believe, make a perfect luncheon dish—basically easy to make and not too filling. My Sicilian family was particularly […]
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For more than a year in preparation for writing my one-person musical about Dorothy Parker , You Might as Well […]
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Twenty years ago, my partner and I walked into an attractive, crowded restaurant in Venice, whose name has sadly […]
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Is it because I am a hopeless romantic? Perhaps. From the time I was a child, those beautiful ballads, most […]
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One of my favorite lunches as a child was cuddurune, or Sicilian fried breads. My mother never made them very […]
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I’ve been a life-long admirer of Stephen Sondheim. Through my years of correspondence with him, he has given me invaluable […]
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For years I corresponded with Stephen Sondheim, who was helpful, encouraging, and influential in my career as a composer. Some […]
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Swiss Steak: 1950s Retro Comfort Food Many outdated foods do not necessarily deserve their untimely deaths. Swiss Steak, a 1950s […]
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When Priest Abuse Is Verbal We are bombarded almost daily by instances of sexual abuse perpetrated by religious leaders, and […]
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Pennsylvania-Dutch Chocolate Cake Despite my love for elaborate European pastries, my favorite dessert will always be this Pennsylvania-Dutch Chocolate Layer […]
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One hot summer day when I was seven years old, I was bored and couldn’t find anything to amuse myself. […]
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My mother’s recipe for Open-Faced Hot Pork Sandwiches has become one of my favorite wintertime comfort foods. Although many cuts […]
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Irene Sharaff, Costume Killer In the summer of 1968, I was hired as a dancer to perform two numbers in […]
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Raspberry Marbled Cheesecake Raspberry Marbled Cheesecake with a chocolate-crumb crust was the prime specialty at Miss Grimble’s, a wonderful bakery […]
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Chicken Croquettes With Velouté Sauce Chicken croquettes with velouté sauce rank near the top of my list of delectable dishes. […]
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Why I Wrote My Memoir I’ve been telling stories about my Sicilian-American family and my career in musical theater all […]
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I love chestnut-filled crepes with chocolate. However until the last few years, making sweetened chestnut purée was an ordeal. It […]
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Scene from La Lupa When I read Giovanni Verga’s four-page novella, La Lupa, I knew I had to turn it […]
Go to Books Tab for Information on My Autobiography
Critical Acclaim for The Wrong Side of the Room
“The book’s second half is fully stocked with accounts of stage shows galore—not to mention impressive name-dropping (Barbra Streisand, Betty Grable, Dorothy Lamour, Gene Kelly). These anecdotes from the theater’s social scene glide alongside vivid imagery from the author’s performances and other successes. The book also has a delightful, chatty sense of humor with moments of wry wit that make it exciting to read.
In the end, it effectively celebrates a life of artistic inspiration alongside the giddiness and glory of live theater.”
—Kirkus Review
Read the entire Kirkus Review here.
Readers’ Favorite Review
by Asher Syed
The Wrong Side of the Room: A Life in Music Theater by Norman Mathews is an autobiography chronicling the author’s life as he transitions from a confusing and often abusive childhood, born in a sleet of uncertainty (literally, as it turns out). Masked by imagination and written with a humor that most would not be able to apply to such situations, Mathews is able to harness this creativity and hitch it to his own ambitions as a rising star. When an injury threatens to derail an ascent that defies all odds, Mathews is forced to reinvent and reignite himself once more, and does so amid a whole host of personal and professional turmoil, scandal, and the kind of stories that are all the more shocking – and inspiring – because they are actually true.
Norman Mathews delivers a riveting memoir with The Wrong Side of the Room that opens with a contentious genesis and powerfully surges through to its finale. This is the ultimate tale of a man who is knocked down seven times and gets up eight, except in this case our tenacious narrator is struck to the ground far more than that. But he does continue to rise and appears to have carved out a genuine niche for himself until, “I woke up one morning with a strange pain in my back and running down my right leg. In a few days, it got much worse, and I began limping.” With the support of his partner Todd, he buys a Steinway, dives into formal education, and…well, at first that all implodes too. But Mathews is the consummate phoenix and, much like he displays in the writing of this book, skillfully maneuvers the trajectory of his life’s own narrative into a story that we are fortunate enough to have shared in The Wrong Side of the Room.
Impressively candid, exceptionally informative, deftly written, organized and presented, “The Wrong Side of the Room: A Life in Music Theater” is an extraordinary memoir that will have special and particular appeal for anyone with an interest in show business. . .very highly recommended for both community and academic library Contemporary American Biography collections.
—Midwest Book Review